


Stardust, Sunflower, Sunrise

by INTPSlytherin_reylove97



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A Very Little Mention, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Ben Solo Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Universe, Coming of Age, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Domestic Fluff, Eventual Romance, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Force Bond (Star Wars), Friendship, From Chapters 13 to at least Chapter 20, Gen, Good Parent Han Solo, Gray Jedi Rey (Star Wars), Growing Old Together, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, Jedi Academy AU, Jedi Ben Solo, Jedi Luke Skywalker, Jyn and Cassian are AWESOME PARENTS, One Shot Collection, Scavenger Rey (Star Wars), Smuggler Ben Solo, Smuggler Kylo Ren, Smuggler Rey, Soft Ben Solo, Undercover, Undercover Missions, WE HIT THE ANGST, What If Jyn and Cassian Lived and Adpoted Rey?, YES I AM WRITING FLUFF HOW ABOUT THEM APPLES, Young Ben Solo, Young Rey, mention of miscarriage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2020-10-06 12:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 48,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20506913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INTPSlytherin_reylove97/pseuds/INTPSlytherin_reylove97
Summary: Jyn was made of stardust; her father’s pride and joy, one who fought and lived despite the odds.Rey was their Sunflower; a flower in the desert, thriving under tender care, an unexpected light to their lives.Sunrise meant the beginning of a new day. A new day Cassian watched rise from the dark every morning.And Ben...He just wanted to find his place in the galaxy. Just maybe it was with them.-.-Canonverse AU~ If Cassian and Jyn lived and became Rey’s parents, taking care of our favorite Force Bond duo.Includes: Growing Up Together, Jedi Academy Shenanigans, and the rise and fall of the next great galactic war.HIATUS: WILL RETURN IN MAY 2020





	1. Flower from the Desert

**Author's Note:**

> So think of this as oneshots like 'it takes a village' because watching Rogue One reawakened my love for Jyn and Cas and how THEY DESERVED BETTER. AND HOW REY DESERVES BETTER.
> 
> (btw, I know I shouldn't start another WIP, but you only live once so...)
> 
> Canon stuff will happen, but not in the way you think..... ;)
> 
> LET'S GO.
> 
> Typos will be fixed later.

* * *

She was a tiny little thing when brought into their care.

Just a child, no older than four, with bright hazel eyes and loved to run around everywhere, a natural curiosity to all her endeavors.

“Where’d you find her?” Cassian asked, watching the girl from afar. A few feet away the child sat happily in the hanger with the boy, Han’s boy—Ben Solo. He floated little rocks around her, she attempted to bat them and grab, Ben just slightly lifting them out of reach before she could win.

A silly little game, more so a distraction than anything.

“Kid sensed her,” his old friend grunted, nodding to the thirteen year old boy, “I was out on a run—” Cassian quirked an eyebrow, “—the Princess knew about this one Captain,” Han clarified, “and the Kid insisted we stop, wouldn’t shut up about it. And I know better than to argue an upset Force sensitive.”

“Force sensitive?” Cassian echoed, eyeing the girl carefully. She didn’t seem to be using the Force, merely attached to Ben at the hip and playing with rocks.

“Yeah,” he sighed, “at least that’s what Ben says.”

“And you believe everything a thirteen year old tells you?”

“I believe anything that kid says about the Force since he’s saved me a few times from a fall or two,” Han said nonchalantly, hinting there was more to his son than meets the eye.

“Was anyone with her?”

“Alone. On a desert planet. Technically under the care of some blowfish, but he didn’t bat an eye when I took her off his hands.”

“One less mouth to feed.”

“Exactly.”

The two fell silent, both watching the kids play.

Ben chased after the girl like a monster, she giggling wildly as she ran off only to be captured by him in seconds. He lifted her up in his arms, she curling into him and clinging like a monkey.

“Why’d you bring her to me?” Cassian asked, unable to hide his curiosity and fear,

“Well,” Han shrugged, “I needed to make a pitstop. Believe it or not, being in constant hyperspace isn’t good for a kid and there are only so many people I trust working on the Falcon—”

“And I’m one?”

“You’re close enough,” he jabbed, a taunt in his tone. “And I know she’ll be okay here.”

“You aren’t even asking.”

“Because I know you’ll say ‘yes,’” Han countered easily.

Cassian’s lips pursed, watching the girl from the corner of his eye. She and Ben were now talking quietly, big hazel eyes staring up at the boy in awe—an awe that never seemed to cease.

“You haven’t answered why. She Force sensitive, she can go with Luke—”

“No!”

Cassian recoiled slightly at the outburst.

Han cleared his throat, glancing back to the kids before lowering his voice. “Don’t get me wrong…I love the guy. Love him more than anything but…” he shook his head with a grimace. “He’s not the most nurturing.”

“And I am?” He raised an imploring eyebrow. “_You_ are?”

“No, no,” the other man wiped a heavy hand down his face, groaning. “It’s just the Princess and I are at odds about the academy right now. She wants Ben to go and learn more since he is…_good_ at it.” He settles on the word ‘good’ despite how off the description felt. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea. It might isolate him more.”

“So you want to hide her here?”

“A kid deserves to be with a family not…not a system,” was all Han said, the weariness he kept at bay seeping through. “And is it really hiding?”

Cassian grunted, not entirely compelled to answer.

A string of giggles came from the girl, Ben tickling her. She crumpled to the ground in a fit of joy, the older boy careful and making sure she didn’t hit her head on her fall.

A truly _odd_ sight. In his early year, Ben was a joyful and lighthearted baby. However as he grew up a cloud of despair seemed to follow him, causing him to lash out, deflect, and be callous out of self-preservation. Of what? No one was sure.

But when he was with the girl, all worry lines and weight faded from the boy’s young shoulders.

He was light, airy, and carefree.

No wonder Han wanted to protect her in the only way he knew how.

The girl gave his little pilot _hope_.

An innocent little girl, who’d seen too much in her incredibly short life. No one deserved to live in fear for the next day, especially a sweet child who had no hand in her fate.

“So will you?”

Cassian swallowed, giving a short nod.

“Stop it, Ben!” the girl giggled, attempting to attack the older boy with tickles. Her arms were too short and Ben too tall, hitting a growth spurt over the latter months of the cycle.

“Never, Rey!” he teased, voice cracking. “I’ll never let you go!”

“She can stay,” Cassian muttered, “But I expect visits. I’m not going to take away her only friend.”

Han grinned, holding out his hand for a shake. “You got it.”

“And you are staying until Jyn comes back—I am not telling her this alone.”

Han deflated at the mention of the stern-yet-gentle hearted Jyn. Neither were entirely fond of each other, but tolerated one another enough for the sake of their respective friendships of their spouses. Cassian believed the two were far too alike, the animosity stemming from seeing their flaws and highlights in another person.

“Fine,” came Han’s delayed response. “I’ll wait.”

“Perfect.”

And maybe it was the beginning of just that.


	2. The Force's Will

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typos will be fixed later!
> 
> Enjoy :D

* * *

“I leave for one standard week and I come back to a child?” Jyn question, eyes narrowed on Han Solo and her husband. “I did not approve of this.”

“None of us did, Jyn,” Han interjected before Cassian had the chance to smooth the waters with his wife. “Which is why I call her,” he nodded to the sleeping child on the sofa, “a pleasant surprise.”

“Pleasant surprise my ass,” she grumbled, glaring at the two men. Her eyes then drifted to Rey on the sofa once more, the girl partially curled up on Ben’s chest. The girl’s hands were tucked under her chin and her legs pulled close to her torso, making herself as small as possible. Regretfully, Jyn sighed heavily. “She is a cute little one.”

“Smart as a whip,” Han added with pride.

“And is Force sensitive,” Cassian informed his wife with a stern brow.

The mention of the Force brought a pensiveness to her. “Force sensitive?”

“Powerful one at that,” Han said, eyes focused on Rey and his son, a tender watchfulness in his gaze. “She’s a special one.”

Subconsciously, her hand went to the kyber necklace. Her mother had been a member of the Church of the Force, dedicated in both prayer and practice despite her lack of sensitivity. As a child Jyn was taught the same respect for the Force. To deny the child a home…she did not know if it were the Forces will or a happenstance, but she knew she needed to consider, at least for the sake her mother’s teachings.

“One we are asked to protect,” Cassian’s eyes searched Jyn’s, she guarded at the thought of protecting such a small and fragile little one. “She has no one Jyn.”

“Except for us,” Han motioned to the three of them, “and Ben.”

“Ben?” Jyn raised an eyebrow. “Your Ben?”

“Yes,” Han said, affronted. “My son was the one who found her. They’ve been attached at the hip since.”

Jyn eyebrows jumped at the defensiveness, not expecting Han to be not only protective of Ben, bit the girl as well.

Arm crossed, she sent the men a leveled look. “I’m not much of a mother.”

“You’ve never been a mother,” Han reminded her gruffly, “So how do you even know?”

She bristled at the comment, turning to face Cassian rather than Han. “Do you want to do this?”

Cassian’s subtle nod was answer enough.

“She can stay for the time being,” she said, if not a bit reluctant. By passing the two, she stepped up to the sleeping children, lips down turning at their curled and cramped positions. “But they shouldn’t be sleeping like this—poor Ben will be sore in the morning,” she chided Cassian and Han.

“And she says she’s not a mother,” Han muttered, before stepping up with a grin. Gently he lifted the girl from Ben’s chest, the boy’s brow furrowing in discomfort from the lack of weight. Rey remained asleep as she was passed over to Cassian, the girl curling into him without a second thought. With a gentle nudge, Han woke his son. “Hey, kid—you can’t sleep on the couch.”

Blearily, Ben woke with the three watching him with bemused looks. “Wha…” he rubbed his eyes. “Where’s Rey?”

“We got her kiddo,” Han assure him, “we just need to get you to a real bed.”

“Third room on the left,” Jyn offered without question, this not the first time Han or other former rebels had made a stop at their home.

Nodding gratefully, Han led his boy out of the living area. Though that did not stop Ben from looking back at Rey with fear and longing, some how already missing the girl as such a brief departure.

At the sight, Jyn felt a light pang, the air taut as the two children were separated.

Blinking, she shoved the feeling away, turning back to her husband—

To find he was already enamored by the child. With a careful hand he brushed away her loose hair, a fond smile on his lips.

During the rebellion neither thought they’d live long enough to have a family, Scarif a near suicide mission. Excessive injuries from the war made it nearly impossible for Jyn to carry a child full term, she and Cassian coming to the conclusion that a family was merely not in the cards for them.

However, the little girl seemed to change that thought.

Maybe this was the Force’s way of giving them what they wanted while accomplishing what is needed.

And Jyn could not deny the Force.

“I think when she wakes she deserves a good bath and some clean clothes,” Jyn suggested lightly. “I’m sure we can find something for her.”

When Cassian’s eyes shined back at her relief Jyn knew she made the right decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Jyn. There is so much of her background with the Force and her family that I wish we knew more about. So we might get into a bit of that.
> 
> And maybe...just maybe, Jyn might be a bit more Force sensitive than she knows ;)
> 
> Let me know what you think! Comments and kudos are always appreciated, love discussing the fic with readers! :D


	3. A Sunflower Without Its Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typos will be fixed later! 
> 
> Enjoy! :D

Rey did not stop crying when Ben left.

And Jyn and Cassian found themselves at a complete loss.

Mostly because this was the most they had ever heard from Rey in the week they’d cared for the child.

The girl was a quiet one, preferring to speak through Ben for all her wants and needs. He became Rey’s little advocate and voice for the duration of his stay. The two were joint at the hip—Ben helping Rey by cutting up her food, picking her up so she could see things better, or helping explain what simple, common objects and words meant.

She preened and thrived under his attention, and in return Ben smiled. A genuine, gentle smile and attitude doing a flipflop from his usual moods.

Cassian found it endearing.

Jyn found it odd.

Neither truly found it to be a problem until the boy was off world and their dear little girl realized this startling fact.

“Rey, sweetie—”

Another ear shattering scream came from her tiny lungs, face red and tear stained as more droplets fell down.

Jyn’s eyes snapped shut, while Cassian winced, both crouched in front of Rey, failing at calming her down.

“Rey,” Jyn hissed, eyes opening slowly, “Rey—sweetie, you need to take a deep breath—”

A loud sob came from her, curling deeper into a ball. “No! I want Ben!” she cried out between shaky, heavying breath.

“Ben won’t be coming back for another couple of weeks,” Jyn explained gently. Her hands hovered over Rey, unsure how to comfort her.

Another rippling yelp came from her, Cassian and Jyn sharing a glance.

“She’s not going to understand, Jyn,” he explained, a bit exasperated. Despite Rey’s crying, Cassian brought her into his arms and held her close.

She continued to cry, though much softer, the sound muffled into Cassian’s shirt.

Hugs did little to comfort. Food did not bring light to her eyes. Wrapping her up on blankets only made it worse.

Rey was crying over Ben as though a limb of her own had been ripped off.

Jyn was half tempted to comm Han and demand he bring Ben back, as ludicrous as it sounded. The boy had a way with Rey none of them were capable of and she needed to know what to do to calm her down, even if that meant seeking the advice of a thirteen year old boy.

However somewhere after the third hour, Rey’s sobs subsided into hiccups until she was simply breathing low and deep.

She cried herself to the point of exhaustion. Jyn’s heart ached, feeling too much kinship at the sight.

Carefully, Cassian laid the girl in her bed, tucking her in for a her impromptu nap.

“What are we going to do?” Cassian muttered, sitting on the edge of Rey bed. Concern worried his brows, mouth pinched in thought.

On the other side, Jyn gently untied Rey’s chestnut locks from their buns. Every morning the girl insisted Ben tie up her hair as such, he listening easily and twisting the hair with apt hands.

“We will learn what she likes and dislikes; teach her sometimes friends come and go.”

“She was abandon, Jyn. I don’t think she’d understand,” he confessed, standing up from the bed. He left for the small ensuite restroom, coming back with a small, damp washcloth. With still and sure hands he wiped away the drying snot and salty tears from Rey’s smooth, freckled face.

“Well, we can’t demand Ben stay here,” she said a half laugh, half huff.

Cassian didn’t reply, mouth in a firm line.

“We can’t,” she insisted with a shake of her head. “You heard Han. He might be going to the academy soon.”

Cassian sighed, weary for his friend. “But Han doesn’t want that.”

“And when has Leia listened to what Han wants?” Jyn countered.

Biting his lips together, Cassian rubbed at his jaw. “Let’s give it a few days. See how she is without him.”

“If we suggest he stay, we are getting involved in more Skywalker bantha-shit,” she reminded him.

“Aren’t we already?” He nodded to the sleeping girl.

“Then we are getting in between a Han and Leia battle, and I can only handle so many in my life,” she said, wiping her face tiredly. “What would we even say—your son is the only one who can calm Rey down, please let him stay with us? Sounds a bit crazy.”

Cassian hummed. “Have you thought maybe he feels the same?” he asked. “That maybe Ben is crying too—”

“He’s a thirteen year old. Why would he be crying over a four year old?”

“Why would he care about her in the first place?” he remarked, both reminded it was not only Rey who benefited from their little odd friendship, but Ben as well.

“Then we give it a few days.”

* * *

On day three, the cries were still nonstop, if not worse as the time passed. Rey’s sobs were to the point where Jyn and Cassian wore earplugs and maneuvered through their daily tasks while carrying around a reluctant and crying child.

A crying child who cried louder when Jyn didn’t pull her hair into the right style of hair buns, or curled into a tiny ball when Cassian attempted to hold her.

She wanted Ben and _only_ Ben.

When a familiar ship came into atmosphere later on the third day, Rey’s sobs lessened.

And then they completely ceased when she saw Ben being led down the ramp of the Falcon.

Han apparently looked no better than Jyn and Cassian, heavy hands resting on Ben’s shoulders leading him to the little girl.

Rey practically flung herself out of Cassian’s arms and into Ben’s, the boy momentarily startled but hugging her back with the same ferocity.

“I got you Rey,” he murmured, eyes shut. “I got you. I’m _not_ leaving,” he said, sending a sharp pointed look to his father.

Han sighed, arms crossed over his chest. “Kid wouldn’t stop crying—some Force voodoo going on.”

“It’s not voodoo.”

“Don’t call it voodoo.”

Jyn and Ben glanced at each other, both surprised at the other’s quick defense of the Force. A small hesitant smile twitch on Ben’s mouth before disappearing all together. He turned his face into Rey’s neck, whispering reassuring words.

And Rey was happy, brighter than she’d been moments earlier.

“We have a little problem don’t we?” Han muttered, watching the two.

“More than a little,” Jyn replied tersely, before turning to head back into her home. Ben followed behind a step after, Rey starting to babble to the boy about anything and everything.

“I should probably comm Leia…” Han mumbled, clearly not keen on the idea. “She might not like this…” he then shrugged. “Or she might be in a senate meeting and not care too terribly.”

“He…” Cassian glanced back to the back door, where Jyn and the children made their exit, before lowering his voice. “He _can_ stay if he wants—if it is okay with you and Leia.”

Han didn’t immediately respond, his face scrunching up. “Leia and I…were trying to be better. But she has a work, I have work—I only brought Ben along because…because he might have nearly killed his latest babysitter—”

“Who?”

“Threepio.”

“Ah.”

“Thought maybe a little trip around the galaxy would be fun, get him out of this…funk I guess.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but.’” Cassian said, all too knowing.

Despite being a war hero, Han Solo was a still a smuggler and a scoundrel. Staying at home with a child, no matter the age, made his bones weary and legs jittery. He was never one to settle down and have a family life; neither was Leia. Both had openly balked when Jyn and Cassian retired from government and political work early in their careers after the war, choosing to settle down in a the grass and remote planet of D’Qar. Few people dwelled there, but enough for there to be life and resources to flourish properly. Not to mention Jyn and Cassian enjoyed the peace and quiet.

“But I do have a job coming up and I was going to drop him off back with Leia. Well, who ever Leia chose to watch over him this time,” he amended a bit bitterly.

Cassian’s gaze soften, he nodding. “Then we’ll figure something out. We always do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am slightly recycling an old idea from one of my older fics. YES. Because you know what, nothing ever really dies XD
> 
> Force Bonds....man they sure do cause issues.
> 
> And JYN! JYN HONEY YOU ARE FORCE SENSITIVE AND YOU DONT EVEN KNOW IT.


	4. A Sun Rises in the East

* * *

Cassian always woke before Jyn.

Had always woken before her for as long as they’d been together. He could not recall a single instance where she awoke before him.

Not that Cassian minded; he liked his mornings.

Mornings where he’d make his caf, eat a small snack, and then leave for his morning hike. A hill and trail later, he’d find his rock—a simple sturdy rock—where he watched the sun rise each morning.

He’d been making the lone hike for roughly ten years.

That is until that morning, when Cassian found Ben sitting outside the house, attempting to meditate.

A task he was failing at on numerous levels, if his pinched eyebrows and screwed up mouth were anything to go by. He knew the boy was taught a few Jedi techniques to hold him at bay until he needed to attend the academy. However by the looks of it, Ben struggled to latch on to the ideals and practices.

Sensing him, Ben cracked open an eye. “Yes?”

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Cassian offered, no weight or insistence in his words.

Just a simple question.

Ben blinked, stunned. As though he’d never been asked to be company, as though he never been asked anything without the pressure to say the right answer. Because there wasn’t a right or wrong to Cassian’s question. Just a choice the boy could make or not make.

Standing up, Ben nodded and followed the older man.

Silently, Cassian led the way to the rock, Ben dutifully behind him the entire way.

Not a word was spoken, their breathing and morning sounds of wind and animals the background to their walk. Dirt was scuffed, but the path clear, worn down through Cassian’s routinely march up the hill.

So enough they reached the large rock, both stopping and resting against it. Water was past between the two without a murmur of acknowledgement.

Quietly, they watched the sun rise—colors of yellow, orange, and dark blue fading together in a gentle splendor.

“_Wow_…” Ben whispered, face boyish and laxed. All stubborn and rigid pretense fell away from him, he for once his age and in awe. “I never knew a sun could look like that.”

Cassian hummed in agreement. “Most don’t.”

The next morning, Ben had caf ready for Cassian, a silent eagerness for _their_ morning walk.


	5. Waiting on the Force

* * *

Rey was a curious little girl.

In both nature and presence.

For a four year old, nearly five year old (no one was too sure where her name day landed), she picked up languages and meanings absurdly fast. Besides basic, she spoke binary and understood a bit of slang from other tongues.

She knew how to take things apart and put them back together with ease. Her little brows remained furrowed and tight as she spent her time pulling apart an old compressor in the hanger. Initially, Cassian handed it over to the girl to keep her busy while she lingered in the small hanger a few yards away from their home. However, he found himself intrigued by the methodical work of her little hands, a child her age far too advanced in the work to be deemed average.

Her bright eyes would follow everyone with anticipation, wanting to observe whatever Cassian was tinkering with in the hanger and what Jyn was working on as D’Qar’s representative in the New Republic. Both never removed her from the room, instead just let her fiddle away nearby. Occasionally, she’d claw into their lap and continue watching, possibly silently learning from their actions.

Sometimes Ben was with her, other times he wasn’t. He had his own studies to focus on—one’s Leia insisted he take back up and keep up if he was planning on living off world for the time being.

He didn’t argue with her, simply nodded and asked once more if it meant that he could stay.

His mother said yes.

And that was enough for him.

He’d do his studies—politics, languages, culture, history etc.—in the morning after his hike with Cassian. By lunch he’d be done for most of the day, spending the afternoon with Rey.

Needless to say, Rey _loved_ her afternoons.

Ben and Rey would play out in the hanger, games of pretend and tag. As always, he let her win though not without a challenge. Other days they’d venture outside, Ben and Rey talking as they laid on the grass, watching the clouds. Talking about what? Neither Jyn or Cassian were sure. What could a thirteen year old and four year old possibly have in common? Well…in common besides their apparent Force sensitivity and close bond.

Sometimes Rey would ask Ben to teach her what he was learning—she absorbed the information like a sponge, with frightening accuracy.

But not once did she use the Force. A little bit both Cassian and Jyn noticed around the fifth month mark.

Ben, however did, and at most times for Rey’s sake.

“But shouldn’t she…I don’t know…be moving things with her mind by now?” Cassian asked, feeling completely out of his element.

“No…” Jyn’s mouth pinched, focusing on cutting the vegetables before her. “Maybe…? I don’t know.”

“There isn’t a handbook for this,” he muttered, dropping more food into the sizzling pan.

“I know,” she sighed, “But she seems happy and maybe she is, or maybe she isn’t a powerful Force sensitive—we won’t know until she does something.”

“So we aren’t going to push it?” Cassian asked. “Let it comes as it comes…naturally?”

“Yes,” Jyn said, feeling it was the right answer. She saw what pushing a child looked like, Ben a prime example, and Jyn did not want that type of pressure on Rey. “We’ll just wait…and whatever happens, happens.”

* * *

Rey’s sharp cry in the night woke everyone in the house.

Jyn was the first to reach her, Cassian and Ben following soon after.

Tears coated the child’s face, she shaking her head as Jyn and Cassian attempted to console her.

Meanwhile, Ben lingered closer to the door, watching with fear in his eyes. Paralyzed as Jyn and Cassian moved into action to calm the little girl.

“The monster—the monster is in my head—”

“Sweetie, _what_ monster?” Jyn asked, smoothing away the girl’s hair from her face.

Rey swallowed, shaking her head and cowered deeper into herself.

“The scary monster!” she blubbered. “He wanted to get me—”

“He won’t get you,” Ben said, speaking up for the first time since entering. “I promise Rey, he won’t get you.”

Her head whipped to him, eyes narrowing with an intensity no five year old should possess. A ferocity and power, one making even the strongest of souls uncomfortable.

And then it faded away as she and Ben remained in their standoff.

Crawling out the bed, Rey charged to Ben, he crouching down before she could crash into him. A quiet murmur was shared between the two—

A “_sorry_” was somewhere in there.

And the air felt _dry_. As though all the energy in the room, or better yet, the planet, was sucked towards the two children.

Glancing to her husband, Cassian remained unaware of the shift in the room. A sense of relief morphed on his warm features, he simply happy Rey seemed okay.

But Jyn knew better.

* * *

Double checking the coordinates, Jyn continued on, resting forward on the speeder.

She told Cassian she needed to run an errand. He hummed, gave her a kiss, and told her to be careful.

The kids barely spared a glance, too consumed with the other to pay any mind to her coming and goings.

Soon enough, she brought to speeder to a stop outside the low structure. Partially hidden within the ground and out looking the gentle waving waters of the planet, no one the spars world would look at it twice.

Perfect for the followers.

She stepped off the speeder and made her way to the front entrance—

Only for it to open before she could knock.

The graying haired man smiled politely. “We’ve been waiting for you, Lieutenant Erso—”

“I am no longer part of the rebellion and that’s a bit creepy,” she countered. “You knowing I was coming.”

“Did you come to confer with the Force—take our offer as—”

“No,” she interjected quickly, not in the mood to hear about joining the Church of the Force. She was not interested in joining a structured religion. She knew the Force and it’s purpose, and did not need old men in stuffy robes to tell her otherwise. “I need…to use your library.”

The man, raised an eyebrow. “And why is that Lieutenant Erso—are you giving into the calling of the Force?”

She pursed her lips and stood taller than her short height. “No, I’m not. But… I am doing research,” she settled on, earning a blank look from the man. “Research on the Force for…the New Republic.”

“Don’t they have Skywalker for that?”

“Has anyone actually seen Skywalker these last ten years?”

The man grunted, unable to argue.

“Senator Leia sent me,” she continued, making up her reasons as she went. She did not need the Church of the Force to know she might very well have the most powerful Force sensitives in existence living under her roof. “Has other’s looking into other Churches of the Force, to bring unity—”

“We have unity—through the Force.”

“We mean _diplomatic_ unity,” she replied stiltedly.

The man did not seem convinced.

“The library is only available to deacons—”

Knowing she was going to regret this, she met his eyes levelly. “You are going to let me use your library, no questions asked.”

“I am going to let you use the library no questions asked…”

“And you are not going to breathe a words of this encounter. In fact, you will forget I ever came once I leave.”

“And I will not breathe a word…”

She didn’t bother to listen to him echo her words, barreling past him and into the building.

* * *

Jyn arrived back home a little before dinner.

She called out a ‘hello’ before making her way to the study, a large rucksack thrown over her shoulder.

Upon entering, she opened a lower cabinet and tucked away all the ancient and parchment books and few remaining holos into the hidden space.

She then locked it up, keying in a four-digit code. Locked and secure.

Standing back up, she brushed off her pants and left from the kitchen.

Tomorrow, she’d start her research.

Because there was something odd between Rey and Ben…and Jyn cared too much to let it harm them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently this fic will also be discussing Jyn struggle with faith in the Force. Yup. Here we go with THAT.
> 
> If you cannot tell, Ben and Rey will constantly be seen through the eyes of Cassian and Jyn. Who are both reliable and unreliable narrators at given times. It will be fun, but also occasionally frustrating and skull scratching because WE KNOW Rey and Ben are bonded, but Jyn and Cassian don't (at least not yet). Not to mention there is a certain refusal to see Luke about the matter, for reasons a little unknown right now. But it will be fun to see how this pans out.


	6. Name-Day

* * *

For Ben’s fourteen year name-day, Leia and Han were supposed to come for a small celebration. Spend the day with their son, eat some cake, have some ice cream, maybe a small gift exchange. Cassian and Jyn planned this for weeks.

Of course, hours ticked by and no ships entered the atmosphere, much to everyone’s dismay.

Halfway through the day a message came from Han—he was caught up in some dealing and wouldn’t make it. He was trying to get out of it, but apparently made more issues by it. He promised to stop by as soon as he was done.

And he would. Han Solo was awful with his planning, but he did his best to keep his promises to Ben. Even if the promises were late and botched. It was the thought that counted.

Leia, on the other hand, did not comm or leave a message.

Jyn needed to simple call up her sources at the New Republic to find out why—a bill was in the process of being voted. A simple matter, except a few members of the Senate refused to vote yay or nay on the matter until the entirety of the bill was revised.

Needless to say, Leia wasn’t coming.

When Jyn explained this, Ben nodded once, unsurprised.

“This isn’t the first one she missed,” he said as explanation.

As evening rolled around and dinner was served, Cassian suggested they still celebrate with the cake and ice cream.

Ben shrugged, but agreed. Mostly for Rey’s sake; she had gained a sweet tooth for ice cream since she began living with Jyn and Cassian. He wouldn’t want to disappoint her.

When asked if he wanted to blow out a candle, Ben shook his head. “It’s silly,” he muttered in defense. Neither Jyn or Cassian pushed the matter.

As cake and ice cream was served, Rey scooted her chair closer to Ben, and rested her head against his shoulder. She’d been subdue for the majority of the day, her attitude reflecting Ben’s. As a child attune to emotions, she often hugged him, and held his hand, telling him he was the _best_.

Based off Ben’s reaction, he didn’t believe her, but he had the heart to humor her, and smiled at the compliments. A smile just for Rey.

“Will I have ice cream for my name day?” Rey asked as she had her second helping. “Because I want ice cream,” she said simply, giggling as she ate more.

The three other’s at the table stilled. A bridge all knew they’d have to cross, but weren’t sure how until it came up—

No one knew Rey’s name-day. A sad, yet true fact.

With a check-up, they’d been able to gage her age. Absolute a five year old at this point, possibly passing her name-day somewhere along the way the past few months. Yet no one truly noticed as there wasn’t a set date.

“Yes, of course,” Cassian was quick to interject, almost seamlessly. “Of course you’ll have ice cream, Sunflower.”

She hummed away, licking her spoon. “Ben and I can have the same name-day!” she exclaimed, turning to him with bright eyes.

The boy’s eyes widened. “No! No—Rey you should have your own name-day. Just for you. You shouldn’t have to share it with me.”

“But I want to,” she insisted, eyebrows furrowing deeply. “Because you’re my best friend.”

“Best friends don’t do everything together,” he clarified, a faint tinge of pink brushed across his pale cheeks. “Like name-days.”

“But I don’t want us to be alone—this way you always have me,” she explained to him as though he were the small child and not she.

Annoyed, Ben sent Jyn and Cassian a glance, expecting them to diminish the idea. Shoot it down. Tell her ‘no.’

Except Jyn and Cassian did not know how to always properly tell Rey ‘no,’ especially over miniscule and frivolous matters.

Such as name-days.

Neither adult celebrated their name-day, maybe wishing the other good day or a gifting a small gift to the other. But other than that…name-days were a bit childish and had a sense of innocence to them the couple merely did not possess. However with Rey and Ben in their lives they thought it’d be nice to celebrate.

“Well, Ben does have a point—you should have your own name-day,” Cassian broached gradually, earning a near matching look of disconcert from Jyn and Ben, both knowing where he was going with his statement. “But if you want your name-day to be with his…then I am alright with it.”

“But maybe you should see if Ben is okay with it,” Jyn was quick to supply. “Because it _is_ his name-day too.”

Turning to Ben with wide and impossibly pleading eyes, Rey asked Ben very quietly for his opinion, Jyn and Cassian unable to catch a word.

Ben’s lips downturned as he listened, and then nodded once. “Okay,” he muttered before turning back to Jyn and Cassian. “She wants hers to be tomorrow. So we still get our own name-days, but we can still celebrate together if we want.”

Rey beamed at them, clearly happy with the compromise.

“Okay…” Jyn dragged out both pleased and a little put out. “Then we will make sure to plan for that in the future.”

* * *

“It’s strange.”

“It’s _nice_.”

“No…” Jyn dragged out, turning in bed to look at her husband. “It’s strange. Not normal.”

“Maybe they talk to each other through the Force,” Cassian joked.

“That…” she shook her head, “that’s _impossible_. The Force doesn’t work like that.”

“But maybe it can,” he said seriously, voice quiet and low in the dark. “We don’t know the Force the way highly Force sensitives do.”

“But we know _enough_,” she countered, “Enough to know, whatever is between them is not normal.”

“And is that a bad thing?”

“No,” she sighed, “don’t get me wrong, I love that they have each other. What I’d do to have had a friend when I was her age…” her eyes screwed shut, “but something isn’t right. Whether that be the Force or their connection—”

“But what if the Force connects them because there is no one else in the world who’d understand them. What if the Force is doing them—_us_— a favor and we don’t even know it?”

Silence fell over them, Jyn considering his words.

She exhaled through her nose, lips pursed. “That’s highly optimistic.”

“One of us has to be.”

“I just,” she curled closer to Cassian, able to see his knowing and gentle eyes watching with patience as she found her words, “I just have this…_feeling_…someone is after our kids and I _don’t_ like it. And it is because of their weird little connection.”

Cassian’s lips quirked. “Our kids?”

Her face flushed, she turning away from him. “Oh, kriff off.”

“_Our kids_?”

“Shut up.”

“Jyn Erso-Andor said ‘our kids’—”

“_Cass_,” she muttered warningly.

“Be careful Jyn, the children might hear you…” he chuckled under his breath, “and we can’t let the galaxy know, Jyn Erso-Andor actually cares—"

“_Maker_,” she grumbled, shoving her face into her pillow. “You’re the worst.”

His light chuckles filled the room, soon dying into muffled sound. “It’s okay to be attached.”

“I know,” she said. “But doesn’t make it easy.”

He didn’t argue on the statement. Instead, his arm snaked around her waist, and curled into her. “I know, I know.”


	7. A Sunflower Bites

* * *

Rey did not play well with others.

This never occurred to neither Jyn or Cassian until the girl started playing with children her own age.

Upon realizing Rey could not forever play with Ben, nor follow Jyn and Cassian around all day, it was decided she’d attend the village’s school. The curriculum was not strenuous, Rey far too advanced, but she needed to be around other children, this the perfect opportunity.

However, no one anticipated sweetie little Rey to be a menace.

“She bit a child!”

“Children bite other kids all the time,” Jyn defended recalling her own instances of self-defense at Rey’s age.

The prim instructor was having none of it, nose upturned to the two. “She bit a fellow student, called him a Huttse slur and threw him on the ground. If I had not intervened, it may have been worse.”

Rey sunk low in her chair, glaring at the instructor. The woman sneered, Rey sticking her tongue out in retaliation.

The instructor huffed, turning to face Jyn once more/ “Myself and the other instructors believe it best if Rey no longer attends.”

“Excuse me?” Jyn uttered. “But she is a five year old girl—five year old’s fight all the time.”

“For no reason?” the woman shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”

Jyn’s brows furrowed. Rey was the least like child to do anything without reason, especially cause a fight. Every little choice and action had a reason for the girl, even if it was a simple reason. Violence for the sake of violence did not match the sweet child.

“Then don’t expect us to come back. I don’t want my child to be scolded without her telling her side of the story first.” She stood up, picking up Rey and balancing the child on her hip. “And don’t think I won’t be telling the New Republic poor school system and disciplinaries. I am after all their informant for this region and a dear friend of Senator Organa.”

* * *

When they arrived back home, Rey made a dash for her room.

Only for Jyn to scope her up before she could get too far.

“No little miss, you are still in trouble.” She deposited the girl in the living area, Rey curling into the corner of the couch in an instant. “You got yourself kicked out of school. That’s not good, Rey. Not good at all.” She crouched to the girl’s level, matching her fierce gaze. “Why did you bite the boy?”

Her lips screwed up into a pout, her face scrunched up. “He was mean.”

“And because someone was mean, you thought it right to bite them?”

“He was mean-mean, to everyone,” she insisted, arms crossed over her chest. Stubborn as ever. “Someone had to fight him!”

“And who told you it was okay to fight someone when they are mean?” Jyn asked, mildly wondering if this was old Jakku mentality or…someone _else_.

Her mouthy little girl didn’t have a response, squirming in her spot.

“Who told you it was okay to get into fights, Rey?”

* * *

“_Hey_!” Ben yelped at the sound of his bedroom door being brutally opened. He’d been in the middle of reading, the old fashioned book resting on his desk, along with a leather bound notebook beside him. Elegant script covered the parchment, Jyn still stunned the boy had perfect handwriting despite it being a dead art.

“Why in maker’s name would you tell Rey fights were _okay_?” she hissed, shutting the door behind her.

Ben winced, sinking further into his seat. “She said that?”

“In so many words.” She held herself taller, Ben’s recent growth spurt making the boy taller than her. “Tell me why you’d tell a five year old it was okay to fight other kids?”

“She said some kid was being mean to others,” he said, his voice cracking, “I said someone should fight him to knock some sense into him. I didn’t think she’d take it upon herself to do it!”

Jyn faltered, the facts telling her Ben was telling the truth. Despite his sporadic outbursts and moments, he was a relatively compassionate boy. To be perfectly honest, she thought he cared a little too much about others on most days, especially when concerning Rey. He was a lover, not a fighter, merely wanting to give and receive love.

Him telling Rey to jump into a fight didn’t make sense.

But Ben telling Rey someone—a vague, all encapsulating ‘someone’—should do something about a bully? That sounded more likely, the mere offhanded comment taken to heart by the little girl.

“I can talk to her—tell her that’s not what I meant,” Ben offered quietly. “I just meant someone should stand up to a bully, not it be her specifically.”

Jyn sighed, a tired smile forming on her lips. She could feel the franticness coming off of him in waves. Stepping forward, she ruffled his moppy dark hair.

“I know, Ben. Relax, you are not in trouble,” she assured him. “I am just frustrated. We merely have a little _Rebel_ on our hands.”

His mouth pulled into a frown at the phrase.

“I’d rather she wasn’t,” he confessed, before turning back to his book.

A pang of…_loss_ coursed through Jyn as the boy focused on his reading and notetaking. Of what? She wasn’t sure.

With another ruffle of his hair, she left his room.

* * *

“You can’t be fighting every mean person, Sunflower,” Cassian said, brushing away Rey’s loose hair. On the other side of the girl sat Jyn, a moral support for her husband.

He was always better at speaking with Rey, the little girl listening with undivided attention and no smart-mouth replies. She expressed humility around him, while with Jyn she liked to push buttons. See how much stubbornness she could pull out with her other guardian.

“But someone has to!” she cried out, hugging her knees into her chest.

“Yes,” Cassian said patiently, hugging her to his side. “But that someone isn’t always you, and that does not mean you bite them. Biting is wrong. Next time you see something, you tell an adult.”

“But what if there aren’t any adults?”

“Then…” he sighed through his nose. Neither wanted to tell her to completely banish self-defense, but also they wanted her to function in a average setting. “Then only fight if it is the absolutely last option.”

She didn’t seem happy with this, but still nodded and mumbled, “_Okay_.”

Both gave her a small kiss on the head and a squeeze, before Rey ran off in the direction of Ben’s room.

“What are we going to do?” Jyn muttered, rubbing her temple. She knew this would not be the last ‘no fighting’ talk they’d endure with their little sunflower.

“We send her back and push through. That’s how she’ll learn.”

“And if it gets worse?”

“We will figure out what to do when we get there,” Cassian assured her, his hand finding hers. “I don’t have a feeling we’ll be here long anyways…”

Jyn’s head whipped to him, stunned. “What do you mean?”

Cassian glanced over his shoulder. Neither of the children were nearby, their chatter further down the hall. “There are rumors…of an organization rising.”

“No…”

“I was contacted by the New Republic military…they just want to send a small group. Do some investigation, no infiltration.”

Jyn sighed. “And you said yes?”

“I said I’ll think about it.”

“Who contacted you?”

Cassian’s eyes became downcast. “Who do you _think_ contacted me?”

Her lips pinched, Jyn nodding once. “She only does _that_ when she thinks I’ll disagree.”

“She _does_ think you’ll disagree, that’s why she contacted me.”

“She knows we have her son,” Jyn huffed, “we can’t be going on missions. We left that life.”

“It’s not a mission, it’s an investigation.”

“Does anyone else know she’s forming this little…” Jyn rolled her eyes, “little band of rebels?”

“Just a few of us,” Cassian explained tiredly, “she believes they are forming somewhere in the Outer Regions and the Senate refuses to listen to her. Calling her ‘war-crazed’.”

Jyn grunted, unable to argue with the term. “So technically this would be without authorization?”

“When have we ever done anything with authorization?”

“True,” she said, a flash of grief consuming her at the thought of her fallen friends. “I’ll need to think about it.”

“Me too.”

“We can’t let the kids know until…”

“Agreed.” Cassian squeezed her hand. “This stays between us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First Order is that you? ;)


	8. Trapped Water

* * *

Ben hated the bunker.

The perpetual frown on his face was answer enough. They’d only been at the base for three standard weeks and the novelty wore off by the second day.

Their mission—ehm, _investigation_—was only meant to last a standard two months. Not too bad. Except for the fact their work was from a distance, in hiding, and the kids couldn’t go outside. Rey was going stir crazy and Ben was about to snap from the six year old’s constant presence.

While the two were still close, adolescent angst seemed to consume Ben to the maximum and Rey was far too interested with her own imaginative world to pay him any mind.

A classic fifteen year old and six year old—except their emotions and tantrums were worse due to the Force. Emotions crashed around the two in frantic, frightening waves. If one was upset the other was just as bad. If one was sad, it was an abundance of tears from both.

A strange pull and mirror between the two.

Cassian joked they shared the same soul.

Jyn said nothing, merely reading more from the ancient texts.

“This is stupid,” he mumbled at least once every day, curling into the corner of his bunk. “I don’t understand why we _all_ had to come.”

From the kitchenette, Jyn continued to make herself and Ben tea. “Because we were not going to leave you and Rey alone at home.”

“So coming to a bunker in the Outer Regions is _better_?” the fifteen year old asked, eyes narrowed on Jyn. “I can barely breathe with all of you around,” he mumbled dejectedly.

The bunker…was not an ideal space-wise.

One large room with a couple of bunkbeds, a couch, a table, and a kitchenette. The fresher and bathroom provided privacy, the one section of the living quarters with a door other than the room’s entrance. Far tighter and closer than their home back on D’Qar.

Needless to say, it was hell for Ben who coveted his alone time, the boy introverted to a fault.

“Lower your voice,” Jyn warned him, nodding to the top bunk.

Curled into a ball was Rey, fast asleep and unaware of her disgruntled friend. Based on the clocks and systems, it was early morning. Cassian had already gone for the day, mostly observation from an ‘undisclosed’ location.

Jyn knew where he was stationed for the day; the kids didn’t need to know. Instead the kids needed to focus on anything else but the looming threat.

Rolling his eyes, Ben crawled out from the lower bunk and came to the kitchenette. Sitting at the table, he watched as Jyn served him tea.

“I just…I don’t like it here.”

“Do you think any of us do?”

“No…” he had the decency to appear sheepish. “But…I can’t _feel_ anything down here,” he confessed. Ben huffed, brows furrowing. “It’s difficult to feel the Force, since we are cut off from so much of the living Force when scattered from others and surrounded by all this durasteel.”

Jyn hummed in agreement, passing him his tea. “I understand. Almost muffled.”

“Yeah…” He stared hard at his cup, lips twisted to the side. “It _could_ be worse…”

Jyn didn’t argue with him on that point. He could be at Luke’s academy, or sitting in the back of never ending Senate meetings. At least that’s what Leia reminded him when she called prior to their investigation.

Her increased calls the last few months were sending red flags, she not so subtly hinting she wanted Ben to pursue _something_—scholarly pursuits, politics, the Jedi…

Something other than hiding away with Jyn and Cassian.

Okay—maybe not in those words, but Leia made it abundantly clear Ben needed to start thinking about the future. After all, she was already involved with the Republic Senate when she was a mere teenager, a mover and shaker.

Ben was a bit catatonic at his mother’s words after her last call.

The boy just liked to read, write, hike, and be around Rey. All other matters never appealed to him.

Squirming in his seat, Ben lifted his gaze to Jyn, pleading. “I don’t want to go—when my mom asks about me again, tell her I don’t want to go.”

“Ben…”

“She wants me to be like her or Luke and…” he shook his head, fear in his eyes. “But…I _can’t_.”

Jyn’s expression softened. “I know. Cass and I both know.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“Well,” she sighed, taking his hand in hers, “we will try. Whatever it is that’s…” she knew she’d have to cross the bridge when she reached it, feeling for years something tugging harshly on Ben, and subsequently Rey, “…whatever it is that is bothering you. We will face it together.”

Biting his lips together, Ben nodded slowly before peeking back up at her. Hesitance flashed in his eyes, considering his words carefully.

“What do you know—_really know_—about the Force?”

She squeezed his hand. “I thought you’d never ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't caught on, we are starting to skip through time. Last chapter Rey was five and Ben fourteen. Now they are six and fifteen. However, we got a couple of more chapters of them at this age before skipping along again and stopping for a bit at thirteen and twenty-two/ fourteen and twenty-three.
> 
> If you know your Star Wars canon you might know what happens during that time frame ;)


	9. A Connection

* * *

“Maybe you were on to something about their souls being connected.”

Looking up from the meal he was preparing, Cassian frowned at Jyn. She sat at the counter, an aged book sitting open on the table before her.

“Who’s souls being connected?” he asked, confused by the comment.

Jyn nodded to the two behind her.

The kids—Rey and Ben.

The two sat side by side, coloring and drawing. Rey purposely colored outside the lines, while Ben painstakingly took his time to color within the lines the sheet provided. The girl teased him endlessly how boring it seemed, but he didn’t mind, satisfied by the order of the color and shapes.

Cassian chuckled under his breath. “It was a joke Jyn.”

“But what if it wasn’t?” She flipped to previous page in the book, a deep intent in her blue eyes. “I think…they might have a Force-connection.”

“Well, we all know that,” he assured her lightly, “anyone can see that.”

“This is different,” Jyn insisted, pointing to the page, “this Force-connection is also considered a Force-Bond. Traditionally between a master and padawan in the Jedi…”

“But they’re just two kids,” Cassian’s gaze followed where Rey and Ben sat beside each other on the floor. “Neither are training to be Jedi.”

“They are strong in the Force,” she countered a bit dejectedly. “From what I can gather, this can happen between two strong users. And they fit the description otherwise… sensing each other, always knowing what the other seems to be thinking… the shared dreams.”

His lips pinched thoughtfully, stirring the stew he had on the stove. “And you think they are two strong Force users?”

“I _know_ it, I don’t _think_ it.”

“And how do you expect us to handle this?” Cassian asked, not trying to invalidate Jyn but attempting to be realistic with their skills and abilities as parents. “I’m not Force sensitive, and you’re not trained. We know virtually nothing except what those books say.”

Jyn snapped the book shut. “We do it our way. Who needs the Jedi—they haven’t existed for years and Luke turns up and decides they need to be resurrected? As far as I am concerned, some things are better left dead.”

Cassian didn’t argue with her on the sentiment; as someone with his own demons, he knew when to let the past die and move forward.

“Okay. We’ll do it our way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much happens, but a necessary transition chapter :)


	10. Fire and Rain

“Inhale, exhale.”

Rey squirmed in her spot.

“Inhale, exhale.”

She kicked out her legs.

“Inhale.” She puffed in. “Exhale.” She puffed out loudly.

And fumbled into a ball of giggles.

“Rey—focus,” Ben scolded from across her. Less than a foot sat between them, she wormed her way closer.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No,” she insisted.

“You can do it,” he assured her, peeking his eyes open.

Her brows furrowed, concentrating.

“No, no, don’t do that.” Ben reached for her hand, she grasping readily. “Don’t force it—just breathe and open your mind. And if you get scared or overwhelmed, I’m here.”

Her lips twisted into a disbelieving pout. “I won’t get scared.”

“Sure you won’t.” He quipped, knowing her too well for the statement to be true.

Obediently, she closed her eyes stubbornly and breathed in unison.

“Inhale, exhale—_good_.”

From a few yards away, Jyn watched from her own spot. She nested under a tree, deciding to take advantage of the outdoors. Being locked away in a bunker for a few months caused her to gain a new appreciation for the wind and sun sitting outside her home.

And from outside she could keep a better eye on Rey and Ben as they attempted their first lessons.

When Jyn and Cassian broached the subject of training with Ben he’d been hesitant. He has certain sensibilities regarding the Force, however powerful he may be, and didn’t want to cause trouble.

It broke her heart a little to hear him link the Force and trouble as one in the same. Which was accurate but not _completely_ true. Peace did come from the Force…it just seemed more difficult to find these days.

The mention of Rey and her lack of basic Force training and knowledge won him over. He wanted to protect the girl…and neither wanted her to be left without the basics if anything were to cause Ben to leave.

He wanted to be her teacher.

And Jyn could not argue.

So she observed while he taught, the troubled and melancholy boy blossoming under his efforts.

Maybe this was what Ben was meant to do—be a teacher. He loved to study, nose always in a book. A certain held back joy consumed him when he was able to share his knowledge as though merely telling another his thoughts and mechanics of a device or the history of a planet was his greatest accomplishment.

She thought of his worries—he didn’t want to be a politician. And Jyn didn’t blame him; his mother was a politician and she never seemed to have an ounce of freedom despite her saying otherwise. And while he wanted to be a pilot, like his father, there was a fear and growing resentment in his eyes whenever the term was mentioned. Both Jyn and Cassian had an feeling Han’s little journeys would eventually get the best of his relationships, they simply did not expect to be witness to the transformation.

And the Jedi…

Ben was intrigued by the Jedi…but more so the Force. He inhaled any and all material on the Force—light, dark, something _in-between_.

But he wasn’t a Jedi and probably never would be.

“Inhale, exhale—you’re doing good.” His light encouragement reached her ears. An inner warmth came from their direction, _one_ solid force.

Jyn’s brows furrowed. She made a mental note of the instance.

Cassian’s connected soul theory was seeming more and more plausible, a simple Force Connection no longer fitting Rey and Ben’s underlying relationship.

Too close. Too in sync. Too intertwined.

More often than not Cassian and Jyn felt less and less connected to the kids as the fifteen year old and six year old relied heavily on each other. Not to an unhealthy degree of attachment, but it could get there fast. She tried to not let it bother her too much _but_…

Shaking her concerns away, she turned away from the children.

Closing her eyes, Jyn quietly followed the their breathing pattern.

Inhale, exhaled.

Inhale, exhaled.

Inhale—

_Flames licked the grounds in rapid speed. Huts and training grounds engulfed in heat and smoke. The blaze of fire lit the night, a slumped shadow rising from the remains._

_A panicked—_“Ben!” _was cried out into nothing, the voice unfamiliar_.

_The fire light consumed him, darkness following through like a vacuum—gone. _

_Fire morphed into rain, a young woman rushing past Jyn in hurry, nearly slipping on the rocky terrain. Her moppy brown hair was pulled into three buns_—Rey—_a staff in her hands._ _She swung at an unknown figure, waves of the ocean below chorusing in rough cries._

_And then she was gone, falling into the abyss of the dark water._

_Snowfall came down above her, the wind stirring the desert land. Sand and snow mixed in a flurry, Jyn stumbling as she moved—her muscles ordering her to move…_

_Until she found the young woman._

_She sobbed over a slumped figure. _

_Her head whipped up, familiar hazel eyes burning with agony. “Please—please tell me what to do. I need to save him!”_

_No words came from Jyn—her voice lost._

_“He can’t die—he can’t.” Her hand went to the man’s face—_

_Jyn felt air leave her lungs. _

_It was Ben. Older—at least fifteen years older. Scarred and pale, breathing shallow and eyes shut. A deep wound bloomed on his chest, his dark clothing soaked with red._

_“I love him! Please—I’ll do anything. Please!” She cried out desperately. Her raw cries echoed in the snow and sand filled land, the air surrounding them stiff. _

_Thunder clattered in above, the storm surrounding them increasing as Rey continued to weep over Ben. As though a part of her was being slip open from his impending death, she dying along with him—_

_A rough invisible shove against Jyn’s chest ricocheted her away, she fall on her back. Snow and sand piled on her at an alarming speed, her body weighted down by the force of the elements. _

_Kicking and screaming, she was buried alive, her escape futile._

_The last thing she heard was Rey’s never ceasing cries—a shift in the Force rattling the galaxy._

“Jyn! Jyn! Wake up!”

A rough shove of the shoulder jostled her from her stupor.

Concerned hazel and brown eyes peered down at her, both _young_ and confused.

_Unlike_ the counterparts Jyn witness moments ago.

A heavy breathe escaped her, she shivering despite the warm air.

Ben’s brows furrowed. “Are you okay? We saw you pass out—”

“I’m fine,” she croaked out, pushing herself up. She cupped his cheek, awkward angles and a boyish roundness still intact. Skin fresh and unscarred. “Perfectly fine—just got the air knocked out of me.”

She dropped her hand down on her lap, turning her forced smile to Rey.

The girl didn’t smile back.

Instead she blinked, face screwing up. “Why are you lying?” she asked bluntly. “We don’t lie to each other.”

The usual outcry from Ben never came, he keeping his mouth shut, the concern from his eyes never ceasing.

“I…” Jyn shrugged. “Um, sometimes adults lie about how they feel because it will pass and we don’t want you to worry,” she settled on saying, earning matching frowns from the kids.

“Lying is bad—Ben says so.”

“I know lying is bad,” Jyn countered, “But sometimes lies protect us.”

“Are you trying to protect us?” Ben asked quietly, eyes sharp and calculating.

“I don’t know—I just had a dizzy spell. Let’s not discuss this any further,” Jyn declared, shutting down the conversation.

She needed to get away from the kids—their faces…_their_ faces haunting her.

“Keep training—I’m going to get some water,” she ordered, leaving little room for argument.

The two seemed hesitant but listened, Ben dragging Rey along back to their spot to continue their meditation.

Upon entering her home, she locked herself into the fresher and released a ragged breath, heaving.

_What did she see? What did it mean? Why her?_

Biting her lips together, she sat down on the floor and let herself cry.

Because something terrible loomed over Rey and Ben…and if the vision told her anything, she could do nothing to stop it except watch with horror.


	11. A Watchful Sunrise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typos will be fixed later! 
> 
> Enjoy :D

* * *

“You are overreacting.”

“I _know_ what I saw.”

“They are children.”

“But they weren’t in my vision.”

“And how do you know the vision was true?”

Silence fell over the couple.

“Because I just…do.”

Cassian knew to leave the matter alone. Let Jyn have her opinion

But that didn’t mean he didn’t watch Rey and Ben’s interactions to find more purpose. To find the deeper meaning to all their interactions.

Naturally, he came upon nothing.

In his eyes, Rey and Ben were just _Rey and Ben_. His kids, who loved to run around, bicker, and read. A boy and a girl who could lay on the grass and count the clouds, or be able to explain the wonders of the stars above them. Kids who loved each other and hated each other because that’s just _how it was_ when you grew up with someone.

Sure, they were closer than the average children—a fifteen old and six year old were not immediately considered friends by most people’s standards. But that did not mean something terribly unseen was brewing.

Nor could he imagine Rey and Ben as full-fledged adults.

Rey still had that _little_ voice toddler’s possessed for crying out loud.

And Ben—

Well…Ben, maybe.

But he was lanky and awkward in his own body.

It felt silly to think Ben as someone tall, imposing, and overall built like a _man_ rather than a teen.

Yet the more Cassian watched over them…the more he realized Rey and Ben rarely… talked.

Actually talk with sounds and words, using the same language.

They’d share looks, decided to do something together simultaneously, had the horrible habit of speaking for each other when in family settings.

At first it puzzled Cassian.

How could the children communicate without ever speaking?

Yet as he continued to quietly observe the two from afar, it came to him in startling clarity.

The kids had been working on forms and stances; glorified stretches in Cassian’s opinion. Rey’s face was scrunched up, she trying too hard to match Ben’s seemingly flawless calmness as he moved through each stance fluidly.

She fumbled and fell on her side. Facing burning red, she angrily stood back up and tried again.

Only to fall once more, unable to keep her balance and focus on the task.

“Rey—don’t curse,” Ben scolded lightly. Rey tight lip and aggravated.

However not a word came out of her earlier.

“But you do it.”

He glared down, annoyed at the girl’s insistence.

A tiny indignant gasp came from her. “I’m gonna tell Cassian you said that!”

“No you don’t!” Ben cried out, catching Rey by the waist before she could run off.

She yelped before collapsing into giggles, Ben tickling her until she was wheezing.

Jyn mentioned the connection the children shared, the closeness and sensing flowing between the two.

Now it wouldn’t be _too_ farfetched for Rey and Ben to communicate without speaking—to reach to the other telepathically?

* * *

For the next year, Cassian did what he does best.

He waits. He listened. Notes are compiled, he studies their interactions with calculated eyes and a soft heart. He loves the children—loves their relationship, loves how they were his family despite lack of blood between all four of them.

And while their habits increased and decreased, always influx, he knew they were connected through the Force. Not just merely connected, but almost intertwined. A strong braided bond between the two where sometimes it was difficult to decipher where one began and other ended, their words in conversations overlapping and their actions miming an mirroring one another on more than one occasion—subconsciously of course. As though sharing the same muscle memory—but ultimately they were their own persons. Rey blossomed in the spring’s mid-day sunshine and summer rain, while Ben preferred dawn and dusk, wrapped in the cool light of autumn and winter. Opposites yet complimentary in every way.

The two were stronger than anyone should know, or have the privilege to be privy to—it was a private matter between Rey and Ben. Stronger than Cassian believed anyone would understand.

A frightening yet calming thought. Because at least the children had each other. Had another person to rely on, who understood how they felt and the depths of their mind inside and out. A soulmate in a way, if such a thing were to exist in the galaxy.

Rey and Ben had each other.

That is until they _didn’t_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got a time jump next chapter! A small one, but it still happens.
> 
> ALSO--my favorite line I have ever written describing Rey and Ben is in the chapter? Do you guys think you know which one?


	12. An Up-Rooting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typos will be fixed later!
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

When Leia announced she was coming for a visit—about a couple of standard hours before she landed—Jyn and Cassian knew it was the beginning of the end of their quaint little home dynamic.

The children were outside, Ben helping Rey sort through the growing weeds in their garden, making sure she didn’t accidently hurt any of the helpful insects crawling around the surrounding area. The seven year old was a little too hyper when it came to gardening, not careful of her surroundings. Luckily Ben kept watch, explaining the significance of the wildlife and creatures of the planet, the inner workings of the ecosystem.

He cared about all lives, even the seemingly insignificant.

Yet the gardening was forgotten once he felt his mother enter the atmosphere. Tools and crotched satchels were dropped, Ben picking up Rey in one swoop and taking her into the house.

He paused upon entering the living area, his young brown eyes connecting with Jyn’s concerned blue—

They both knew.

Leia wasn’t _alone_.

* * *

“Ben, I haven’t seen you since you were a pipsqueak,” Luke Skywalker greeted jovially with a smile. A stark contrast between the frown Ben shot in the direction of his uncle and his mother.

The Andro-Erso family rushed to meet the Senator and Jedi in the hangar. While Cassian wanted Rey to stay back in the house, she clung to Ben like a leech, undoubtedly sensing his distress.

The Jedi seemed to come in for a hug, but the teenager shuffled a half step back, forcing a polite smile.

Luke swiftly tucked his hands behind his back, acting as though the refusal of affection did not bother him. However, his calculating eyes spoke otherwise. He eyed the Andor-Eros’ and Ben with sharp curiosity.

A curiosity the couple knew could only be aided by the Force.

Leia sent a stern raised brow to her son, though he ignored her silent scolding.

“Why is he here?” Ben blurted out, earning disapproving glances all around.

From beside him, Jyn took the reins. “I think what Ben is trying to say is, we thought it was just you coming for visit, Leia,” her eyes darted to Luke, nodding to him, “if we’d known Master Skywalker was coming…” Jyn trailed off, sending her husband a desperate look.

Neither were prepared for this type of meeting. Not to mention both had met Luke a handful of times in their life, the man not necessarily a close friend, but rather closed off from others as he dived deep into his Jedi studies.

“We would have done something nicer,” Cassian settled on, “it’s not every day you have a Jedi Master in our household.”

Ben sent Cassian an incredulous look, but remained silent. _Thankfully_.

“We Jedi are not attached to frivolous occasions or matters. A simple welcome is sufficient and appreciated,” he remarked politely, smiling gently—almost boyishly at the mix-matched family.

“I thought it’d be nice for Luke to come along considering he hasn’t seen Ben since he was a child,” Leia supplied levelly, though kindly. The lines between politician and friend were blurred in the encounter, the family knowing she was there for her son…but seemingly something else entirely. “And I think it is due time for the children to become acquainted with Luke, seeing as they are incredibly gifted with the Force.”

Cassian’s hand on Rey’s shoulder tightened, protectively. The girl stood between Cassian and Ben, crowding closer to the boy.

“Rey doesn’t practice the Force,” Jyn declared simply. A cover. A lie she and Cassian agreed to despite the likelihood of it actually working against the legendary Luke Skywalker.

The twins shared a disbelieving glance.

“I can sense her out of atmosphere,” Leia informed them, sending a small smile towards the girl. Rey matched her stare, but her grasp on Ben’s tunic tightened. “She sure is a bright one.” Sharing a nod with her brother, Leia faced Cassian and Jyn with the eyes of a general they knew well.

“I have some news we best discuss in private—without the children.”

Ben bristled as the dismissal. “I’m almost eighteen—”

“And still a child,” Leia countered swiftly. “This is a matter I need to discuss with Captain Andor and Lieutenant Erso,” the use of the couple’s military rankings was not lost on anyone, “Why don’t you show Luke some of the forms you have been working on with Rey?” she suggested knowingly.

Huffing, Ben grasped Rey’s hand and marched off with her, not looking back to see if Luke was following. The older man shook his head, but left after them, a sense of determination in his jaw.

Once they were gone, Leia turned back to Cassian and Jyn, eyes grave. “I’m sorry to interrupt your day so suddenly, but this could not wait,” she stepped forwards towards them, eyes set on the two. “But I have grounds to believe I am in danger of an assassination.”

* * *

Luke found the children unnerving.

Extremely guarded, yet soft.

Tender, yet fierce.

Diligent, yet playful.

A push and pull, a tide in the ocean of each other.

Their force signatures, while strong, were incredibly difficult to decipher from one another when Ben and Rey were in close proximity.

A strange revelation. One he had never witnessed.

The three sat down for meditation, a request from Luke as he had been traveling and wanted to become attuned to the life force on the planet.

Meditation was also a chance for Luke to carefully prob the two young Force sensitives minds without their immediate recognition.

Inhale, exhale.

Inhale, exhale.

Inhale, exhale.

Inhale—

_“Whatever happens we stick together,” Ben voice traveled in the empty space._

_“Nothing bad will happen,” came the stubborn response. The girl’s voice sure and confident, yet still growing. “We have Mama and Popa—”_

_“You’ll always have your Mama and Popa,” Ben insisted, voice cracking with weight. “But if anything happens, _we_ stick together. Promise me.”_

_A petulant huff echoed. “Fine—wait—what is that?”_

_“What’s what?”_

_“I feel something…around us…watching,” her voice became small, not afraid but highly aware, “Like someone is trying to liste—”_

A violent shove rattled his mind.

Luke’s eyes opened in a flash, finding his nephew’s gaze focused deftly on him.

Meanwhile the girl, Rey, looked like she was on the verge of vicious tantrum. Mouth twisted into a monstrous pout and eyes squinting on him, prepared for an attack.

Luke gapped at the children, frightened and intrigued by his startling conclusion. “You two are—”

“Don’t _ever_ do that again,” Rey growled, standing up to her full, rather short, height. Just as she was about to charge straight towards him with scrappy fists, Ben’s arms reeled her back.

Her arms and legs kicked insistently, banging on Ben’s chest and shins, yet the sixteen year old kept his strong hold.

“He looked! He tried to—”

“Calm down, Rey!”

“But he—”

“Rey, I said calm down!” Ben scolded sharply, eyes matching her ardent hazel stare.

Any other whines and outcries were swallowed back, she left with tiny whimpers. Her slim arms wrapped around Ben’s middle, she burying her face into his tunic as her tears continued. Ben’s grip loosened, merely keeping an arm around her for security, a solid assurance.

His nephew’s once perpetual, thoughtful gaze turned into silent fury—all directed at Luke.

“You scared her.”

The Jedi’s brows furrowed, he gradually standing up. He had much to think about concerning the twos’ display.

“Ben…” Luke began, unable to look away from the two no matter how uncomfortable he felt. No matter how much he felt he was invading on a private moment. “Ben, what you two have it’s not _safe_.”

His nephew scowled, hugging the girl tighter to his side.

“Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it is not safe, or wrong,” came Ben’s icy reply. “I know what we have. I’m not an idiot—I’ve done my research, Uncle Luke.”

“I never said you were an idiot, Ben,” Luke quickly amended. “But…are you training her alone?”

The silence he was met with was answer enough.

“Kiddo, I think you’re in over your head.”

“I know what I’m doing!” Ben shot back, his breath ragged. “I have been helping her—been helping us—for years. I have read every text I can get my hands on, I have been teaching her everything I know—there is nothing you can do to help us that I’m not already doing.”

Luke felt the truth and pain in his words.

But he also saw a child. A child who had his own struggles and relied to heavily on a far younger child to be his sole companion.

“I believe you, Ben,” Luke stated cautiously, feeling the Force pulling taut in the air. “I believe you have done everything in your power and possession. But you’ve never had Jedi training. Yes, you’ve read the books, but not all of them. I haven’t even read all of them.” Luke looked down to the girl. Her cries had stopped, yet she continued to glower at him. He was the enemy due to his own curiosity and concern; a constant battle he’d have to endure with the girl. “A Force Bond isn’t something you can hide forever. Especially one of this capacity.”

The girl peeked up at his nephew, a silent conversation occurring between the two.

Luke knew he needed to tell them.

“I’m not here for a simple visit.”

“Of course not,” Ben replied stiltedly.

Luke grimaced. “You mother has an important mission for Captain Andor and Lieutenant Erso, one that they cannot refuse. There will be no other option but for you two to join the academy.”

“_What_?” Ben’s voice broke.

“Leave?” Rey asked, fear stiff in her bones. “But this is home.”

A sad, understanding smile formed on Luke’s lips. “I know. This is home for both of you. But in times of war—”

“We’re not in a war,” Ben reminded him.

The boy was met with an even stare that told him otherwise.

“In these times, we must all make difficult choices. Such as leaving the only home we ever knew.”

The children stared at him, their eyes pleading with the same, echoing, desperate cry.

The same eyes in different people.

"But I will makes sure you two stick together. And that's a promise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. I went there. But alas, our kiddos will stick together! BUT LUKE DON'T MAKE PROMISES YOU CAN'T KEEP.
> 
> (I mean I did almost do it where they were seperated, but I figured I should play my angst cards carefully)


	13. Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typos will be fixed later!
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

Jyn and Cassian helped the children pack, folding and rolling their clothing and sheets in the duffles and satchels.

Rey and Ben were due to leave by nightfall, Jyn and Cassian taking off in the opposite direction the following morning. The family would be separated for an undisclosed amount of time. No one was pleased with these reality.

The academy did not allow for many possessions but Luke made an exception for the given circumstances. Technically, Rey was still too young to attend, a few years shy of her tenth name day.

"I can do it," Ben muttered as Jyn tightly rolled one of his favorite long sleeved undershirts. She paused, looking up with tired, remorseful eyes.

"Please, let me help."

Worrying his bottom lip, Ben nodded. "Okay."

As she tucked a set of tunics away in his duffle, she sent him a curious glance, eyes burning. "You know how to operate communication devices...ones that reach into different sectors?"

"I know enough, but I can always learn more." Jyn's lips pinched together, brows stern; the face of a military woman rather than the mother figure he known for the last few years.

"Good." And she continued packing.

"I'll keep Rey close." Ben carefully place his calligraphy set in his satchel along with his journal. "Keep the bond open just for safety measures."

She rested a gentle hand on his shoulder, eyes meeting his firmly. "I know you will. I don't have a single doubt." Considering her next words carefully, Jyn lowered her voice. "If anything happens, anything bad where you two are in danger—"

"It's just an academy with a bunch of kids."

"Ben," she said warningly. He shut his mouth, listening. "If anything happens, you take Rey and run. Stick together."

"But where would we go?" Her eyes darted to one of the texts she had tucked away in his duffle.

"You'll know." He was a smart enough boy; he'd figure it out.

* * *

"But what if I hide. People can't find me if I hide."

"Sunflower," Cassian uttered softly, "you need to be on your best behavior."

Rey flipped back on her stomach, digging under her bed for her boots. She had a terrible of habit running around outside barefoot, preferring how the grass felt between her toes. Pulling one arm out, she had one dusty boot but not the other.

With huff, she went reaching again.

“But what if people are mean to me?” Rey asked, producing the other shoe. “What if people are mean to Ben?”

“Why would you think people would be mean to you two?” Cassian asked, genuinely concerned.

She shrugged, her little boney shoulders slumping. “My other school didn’t like me.”

“You other school didn’t understand you.” He picked her up off the floor and sat her down beside him on the bed. “But this school…you’ll have Ben and Master Skywalker. And the other kids know the Force like you do.”

“Will…will they be able to be like how Ben and I are with each other?”

Her perceptive hazel eyes locked on him.

She knew he knew about the bond. She didn’t need to saying anything else to communicate she did. Her eyes spoke the truth they both knew.

“No.”

“Huh…okay,” she shrugged.

“What you and Ben have should probably be kept between you and Ben,” Cassian suggested.

“Why?”

“Because it is important and special to you—don’t forget that.”

* * *

Hugs and kisses were exchanged in the hangar, Rey clinging on the Cassian harder as the time to depart inched forward.

“When will we see you again?” Ben’s arms remained around Jyn, afraid to let go.

“Not for some time, but we’ll write and send packages,” she quickly assured him, pressing a motherly kiss to the side of his temple. “We will make sure of it.”

Pulling away, Ben nodded in understanding. Communication would be few and far between, but not nonexistent. That was better than nothing.

“Alright Sunflower,” Cassian murmured into Rey’s hair. “You need to go now.”

Rey shook her head, mute.

“Rey,” he said warningly, “you need to go. We will come back for you, Sunflower.” His warm eyes darted to Ben, holding him in place. “We will come back for _both_ of you.”

Ben’s lips twitched, grateful, though his eyes remained glistening from unshed tears.

With great effort Ben soldiered through and pried Rey off of Cassian. She yelped in indignation but fell silent a second later, her thin limbs wrapping around the boy for dear life.

Sparing one last glance at Jyn and Cassian—committing them to memory—Ben swallowed tightly.

“May the Force be with you.”

_I love you. Please come back._

And he walked up the ramp, Rey’s tears of anguish seen over his shoulders.

Then they were gone, lost in the body of the ship.

Silently Jyn held her hand out to Cassin, he intertwining their fingers together.

“We’ll be with them again. I know it,” her husband promised, conviction in every ounce of his being.

“I know,” she breathed, “just doesn’t mean it hurts any less.”

.

.

.

.

.

Neither realized it would be the last time they’d see either Rey or Ben as children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT CHAPTER WE GO TO THE ACADEMY! Whoop! Whoop!
> 
> And just because we are saying Goodbye to Jyn and Cassian now does not mean we won't see them or hear mentions of them in the next few chapters. And Rey and Ben will stick together as long as possible, I CAN SAY NOW I won't be doing the whole thing where Ben abandons her after the fall of the Jedi Academy like many fics have done. I got a different plan ;)


	14. Finding New Soil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I hated how sad I ended the previous chapter, I am giving y'all another updated today.
> 
> Typos will be fixed later.
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

Ben liked the academy.

Luke thought his nephew would hate the atmosphere or the other students, but the sixteen year old enjoyed the structure…for the most part.

In the mornings he’d meditate with the older students, spend time at the library during the afternoons and read anything he could get his hands on. As a surprise to everyone, Luke included, Ben had also excelled—_rapidly_—at his lightsaber forms.

Ben Solo was noticed by his peers at an alarming rate, boys and girls at different levels wanting to befriend him. To learn from him, to become better like him, to hear stories from him…A natural talent, an infectious Force signature, and a driven boy summed up his nephew in the few short months he’d been living at the academy.

Luke thought it was wonderful; his nephew was finally interacting with peers his own age. Learning and growing with individuals who could understand him.

All he wanted for Ben was a space for him to come into his own.

The Jedi master simply did not take into account his nephew was not like Han and Leia. Not like Han who could spit out cocky one-liners to make the crowd chuckle. Or Leia who could command a room with a glance and whip-smart plan. Or even like himself, who’d take an unspoken title and wear it proud, and work to upkeep expectations.

No, his nephew was different.

The attention _unsettled_ Ben.

* * *

Rey hated the academy.

Luke had his work cut out for him with the tiny spit-fire.

The seven year old refused to leave her hut, the other girls in the space left with the uncomfortable job of coercing their new roommate out for morning meditations.

Rey also hated meditation.

“Master Skywalker, she does not listen and bothers the other children,” Li’ana, one of his older students complained after a week with Rey in her classes. Teaching duties were delegated to older students who showed exemplary work, the young woman one of his best. If only she knew how to control her temper.

“Then teach her the basics again, add more meditation time for her until she gets it,” Luke suggested. “She had informal training.”

“She shouldn’t even be here—she’s too young,” Li’ana informed him sharply, though kept her expression diminutive.

“We don’t have a choice and she is incredibly gifted,” he defended.

“Doesn’t matter how gifted a child is, if they can’t control their emotions they might as well be a lost cause to the Force.”

Luke found he could not argue with his student.

* * *

His nephew liked to take early morning walks before his mediations. He’d venture out beyond the hills and the forest surrounding the academy, but always comeback after the sunrise and in time for morning meditations.

Several times a few students wanted to join him, but Ben turned them down every time.

Except for Rey.

Rey could tag along anywhere Ben went. A fact many of the other students noticed, though did not comment on. At least not when Rey and Ben were around.

“Master Luke don’t you think it’s weird?” Milo, a student a couple of years younger than Ben, commented during dinner one night. Dinners were held in the mess hall for everyone to sit together, students rotating on preparing meals. Luke made an effort to join every night and sit with a student, have a one-on-one chat.

However, Milo sought him out.

“What’s weird?”

“Ben and Rey.”

Luke looked up from his lentil soup, brows furrowed. “They are simply close Milo. They _did_ grow up together.”

The boy’s mouth formed a hardline.

“No…there is something weird,” he dropped his voice low, “in the Force with them.” He squirmed, glancing around. His moppy brown hair flopped in his face. “Like they are tied together…?”

He raised an eyebrow at the boy.

Milo Agave was not the average Force user. He wasn’t the most coordinated, failed at least half his forms…but he _understood_ the Living Force. To a degree someone his age and caliber shouldn’t, yet he was acutely attuned to the relations of Force signatures and their interactions.

He’d never interacted with another student who possessed a heightened sense of signatures since…

Luke’s eyes trailed to where Rey and Ben sat together. One of the first things he taught the two was masking their bond; a precautionary gesture. Over his time as a Jedi and a teacher, Luke learned it was better to be safe than sorry concerning the ways of the Force and those who craved it’s power.

And the children adapted, they listened, and implemented his instruction well.

Not one hiccup.

Until now.

“Milo, you can sense them through the Force as intertwined—correct?”

The boy nodded.

“Do you fear it?” Luke pressed.

Milo shook his head. “I just think it’s weird…because I’ve never sensed Force signatures like that before,” he confessed, a twinge of shame in his eyes. “I did mean to overstep Master—”

“No overstepping Milo,” the Jedi was quick to assure him. “Just a curiosity. How are your forms going?”

His face flushed, Milo digging into his lentil soup with more fervor.

“Ah_, I see_.” Luke chuckled in understanding. “I think I might have a solution to your struggle in forms and exercises. But I must ask, how do you feel about an independent study?”

“Independent study?” Milo echoed. “What’s that?”

“You get to study some information on your own and you and I will meet weekly to discuss what you have learn from your research,” he explained patiently. “You’d be studying the history of Force signatures and their interactions. I think you’d like that.”

The boy shrugged, intrigued but not entirely enticed by the idea.

“And I will set you up with a tutor for your forms.”

Now that caught the boy’s attention. “Who?”

* * *

“I’m not teaching some kid I don’t know how to do forms!”

Ben stomped around his hut angrily, on the verge of knock over his bookshelf from his quaking ferocity.

“Ben—it’s not teaching, it’s tutoring. There is a difference,” Luke insisted. “And he is a bright boy, he just struggles with the exercises and forms.”

The seventeen year old huffed, arms crossed over his chest and mouth twisted into a stubborn pout. “Maybe he shouldn’t be a Jedi!”

“Maybe _you_ shouldn’t be a Jedi with the anger you are showing,” Luke shot back, silencing the boy.

Ben glared at him, choosing to remain in the furthest corner of the hut, away from him. Despite being beloved by fellow students on the surface, by the sixth month of his stay Ben grew agitated. He excelled at a speed those his age were not operating at, pushed into classes with young adults. A streak of challenging his instructors became a new normal, Ben wanting to be better and know more for the mere sake of _being better and knowing more_.

His nephew refusing to tutor another padawan besides Rey, was not all that surprising.

Sighing tiredly, Luke took a seat on the edge of Ben’s bed, beckoning his nephew to join him with a tilt of his head.

Ben remained planted in his corner, but nodded for his Uncle to proceed.

“Milo is a good kid. He just is not the most agile—the Force didn’t gift him in that way.” When Ben didn’t interrupt, Luke took it as his cue to continue his a pitch. “He needs a little help and maybe a friend.”

“I don’t need friends. I have Rey.”

“That’s not an excuse,” Luke pinched the bridge of his nose. “You can’t use your connection to Rey as an excuse to not make an effort with your peers.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“It’s only true because you _make it_ that way.”

Ben had the decency to look the least bit ashamed by the accusation.

“And it is not good for Rey. In fact, it is an awful influence.”

“I am not a bad influence!”

“I’m not saying you are,” Luke corrected. He stood up from his passive slouch in an attempt to remind Ben who exactly was the adult in the room. “I am saying she follows your lead, Ben. Not all the time—thank the maker—but she does watch you. You habits have a way of becoming hers too.”

Ben chewed on the inside of his cheek, a heated debated in his brown eyes. Absentminded, he kicked the edge of desk, preferring to look anywhere but at the Jedi Master.

“What if I told you it wasn’t _me_ who didn’t want to make friends?”

_Was he saying, what Luke though he was saying?_

Luke snorted. “Are you saying a eight year old girl is manipulating you into not making friends?”

“It’s not like that!” Ben hissed. His hands fisted his hair, meeting Luke’s amused yet confused stare. “I feel _everything_ she feels.”

“Everything?”

“Everything,” his voice cracked. Weighted by his own words, Ben slumped against the wood frame of the bed, still keep a steep distance between himself and his uncle. “The loneliness, abandonment. She misses her parents, her home…she’s just _eight_, Uncle, and she has already gone through hell you don’t understand.”

Luke did not have words to comfort his nephew.

So instead he asked—“Does she feel what you feel?”

Ben didn’t answer.

* * *

“Rey, today you will not go to meditation.”

Looking up from her soppy oatmeal, the eight year old stared at him, mouth in a grim line.

The child had more personality in her pinky than most adults had in their entire body. A frightening realization. She’d be a force to be reckoned with once she hit her late teens.

“Why?” She let her spoon plop back into the untouched oatmeal. Mush splattered out of her bowl, slopping on to the dura-steel table top.

Without batting an eye Luke waved the mess away with a napkin.

A few of the other children and students glanced their way, curious whispers occurring at the tables surrounding them. Normally Ben would be sitting with her, but was sent to have his breakfast outside as Luke handled their little Rey problem.

“Because you and I are going to work on a little project.”

“I have classes,” she informed him stubbornly.

“You are excused from classes.”

“I have lunch with Ben.”

“You will have to postpone for tomorrow,” Luke deflected easily, knowing the girl would use her Force Bond with Ben as an excuse. He was becoming highly aware of her little tricks and habits, one usually did when a heathen like her running around the academy. “You and I are going to be spending some quality time together.”

“That’s stupid.”

Luke’s optimism deflated at her bluntness.

“I think it sounds great,” he said happily. “Once you are finished with your breakfast, join me by the water-well and we will get working.”

“No,” she told him plainly. “I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

“You will and that is an order from your Jedi Master.” Luke stood up with an air of finality, effectively ending their conversation. The girl openly sneered at him, a sense of beastliness hidden under the façade of an adorable child.

He ignored the faint tug of dark side swirling in her vicinity.

She was a child; she didn’t know any better.

As he stepped away her heard a quiet murmur—

_“I don’t want to be a Jedi.”_

Jaw locked, Luke stored information away and kept on his path.

* * *

He handed her a small shovel.

“We are going to plant a garden.”

Rey eyed the object warily. She peered up at him, her sharp gaze assessing him. “But you have one already.”

“Yes, we do,” Luke motioned to the flourishing garden on the other side of the lot. “But that is for vegetables, fruits, and herbs—it is for practical and survival use. Also teaches some of the students how the Force works in all living things, such as plants.”

Crouching down beside her, Luke scooped a patch of soil in the palm of his hand.

“But this one, padawan—” Her nose wrinkled at the term. Luke cleared his throat, realizing his mistake, “—this one, _Rey_, will be to remind us of the beautiful things in the Living Force.”

“Beautiful things?” Her hand hovered over the soil in his palm.

“Yes,” Luke nodded once, for once unafraid to meet the child’s gaze. “Ben tells me you like flowers.”

A faint blushed bloomed on her cheeks, she suddenly becoming bashful. “I _love_ flowers,” she confessed.

“Then why don’t we plant some?”

* * *

Rey no longer went to morning meditations.

She no longer was forced to practice forms she already mastered with the other children.

Nor was she forced to join her peers at other long history classes, information Jyn had taught her and Ben during their time in the bunker.

No, her days were spent in the garden, taking care of the plants, working on her own form of meditation.

A happy medium.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EXPECT A FEW MORE CHAPTERS OF ACADEMY SHENANIGANS! Both the good and the bad.....
> 
> Also Milo is my everything and I hope y'all like him and the other character I introduce next chapter ;) They might become important later.


	15. A Stream Trickling Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another update. Want to get through the Jedi Academy act of this fic to get to some major parts of this fic!
> 
> Typos will be fixed later! 
> 
> Enjoy! :D

* * *

Luke though he was brilliant for finding alternative outlets for Rey and Ben.

The girl was consumed with her garden, participating in a few classes here and there. The Jedi Master did not fear the girl would fall behind, Rey eliciting the fear from some of his eldest students with her skills with a staff and Force sensitivity.

Rey was the least of his worries.

Ben on the other hand…

“I told you, your stance is off.” He wiped his hand down his face, too bent out of shape to focus on his unwanted student—Milo.

“I’m trying!”

A ‘_well, try harder’_ was swallowed back. Ben nodded furiously as though not saying anything and nodding would be a decent substitute for any possible words he could say.

Milo slumped at Ben’s lack of response, easily sensing the waves of disappointment from the older boy.

“Ben,” Luke called from his watchful spot a few paces away, “come here a moment.”

The seventeen year old huffed, following his uncle’s orders. “What is it?”

“Why don’t you try a softer approach?”

“Softer?” Ben uttered. “I keep on telling him the proper way to hold a lightsaber in defense and he—”

“He cannot read your mind, Ben. It’s not like teaching, Rey. She knows what you mean and how you mean it, other people don’t.”

The teenager bristled at the comparison, yet there was a flash of comprehension in his gentle brown eyes.

“Why don’t you do it alongside him? Demonstrate each step explicitly until he understands and gets it—he does want to master the stances. Any one with eyes can see that.”

The two glanced back at said boy, he struggling to switch from offense to defense in his lonesome. Waving the wooden practice lightsaber, the boy lost control of the stick, the blunt edge of the practice saber smacking him in the face.

The Jedi Master and soon-to-be Jedi Knight winced.

Milo Agave needed help, desperately.

“Maybe he needs to learn through practice opponent,” Ben murmured. “And I think I know the perfect person.”

* * *

Milo Agave considered himself to be a good person.

He finished all his studies on time, made sure to plan his meals for the academy accordingly and took dietary restrictions into account. He even worked double the amount of chores for the sake of picking up slack from his fellow peers.

Milo Agave was a good person.

So when Ben Solo—the son of the legendary war heroes and all around pretty damn talented Force sensitive—handed him a wooden practice saber and ordered him to attack the little girl in front of him, Milo Agave did what any good person would do.

“Are you insane!” He tossed the practice saber aside and glared at the boy. “I’m not going to hit a little girl!”

“Hey!” said girl cried out, whacking him in the shins with her staff. “I’m not little!”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Don’t insult her—she bites.”

Milo’s eyes widened, he staring down at the girl apprehensively.

Rey was an enigma to them all at the academy. Clever and mischievous, she was either a nuisance or an enemy to most of the students. As the youngest, she was often babied, much to both her and Ben’s chagrin.

And that was another thing—as much as anyone loathed the eight year old’s presence, they all kept their grievances sealed shut because of one Ben Solo. The girl was his friend and would be untouched, a fact that caused Solo’s image to deteriorate in the eyes of many.

“Not anymore!” Rey cried out, whipping her neck from Ben to Milo. “I don’t bite anymore. I promise, Mama said it’s not good to bite people who are mean.” Her head then tilted to the side, eyes latched on his curiously. “And I don’t _think_ you are mean.”

Milo gulped.

He now understood why half the academy was afraid of the girl.

She was a little demon hidden in angel’s clothes.

Yet for some reason she was the apple of Ben Solo’s eye.

“Honestly, you have more to fear from her than she does of you,” Ben commented, Rey nodding in agreement. “Rey knows how to handle herself.”

Just as Milo was about to argue against Ben’s logic, he felt _it_.

_The bristled, somber swirl of the darkness protecting the incandescent glow of the light. A single thread pulling the light and dark together leading to—_

Rey’s staff connected with Milo’s shin. “Pay attention, or you’ll die!”

“Let’s not be dramatic, Rey.” Ben’s hand rested firmly on her shoulder. “And _remember_ what we talked about?”

“No hitting unless you say so,” the girl droned, exasperated by his hovering.

“Right,” Ben squeezed her shoulder, before looking back up at Milo with a forced yet pleasant smile. “You have nothing to worry about, Rey is just here as a sparring partner.”

“She’s a foot shorter than me.” Milo glanced down at the girl, her three buns perfectly tied on the back of her head. Briefly he wondered if she did them herself, or had Ben help her, her arms too short and tiny to accomplished a painstaking task. “Aren’t sparring partners supposed to be the same weight and height?”

Ben ignored the question, returning to the conversating at hand. “She is the only person I _trust_ to spar with you.”

Milo didn’t need to be Force sensitive to read the underlying threat laced in Ben’s words.

If he were to respect Ben’s authority, he needed to respect Rey’s capabilities. And Milo knew, deep down, the two were to be trusted. Possibly the only two to be trusted in the blasted academy.

Calling for his wooden practice saber through the Force, Milo faced the girl once more.

“Okay—just go easy on me?” he begged.

Her grin told him she’d do otherwise.

And with a high arched swing, she began to attack.

* * *

“What are you doing here?”

Li-La Baze opened her eyes to find a pair of hazel eyes looking back. Nearly nose to nose with another person.

She yelped, leaping away.

“What are you doing in my garden?” the girl asked, this time less curious and more accusatory.

“I thought this was the temple’s garden.”

The little girl shrugged. “Sure it can be, but it’s mine.” Picking up the discarded basket, the girl went to work to tending the flower beds, completely ignoring the other girl’s presence.

Li-La blinked, finding it odd the girl decided to stick around even though it was obvious the space was in use.

“Can you wait to take care of the garden? I’m trying to meditate.”

“Nope,” the girl countered swiftly, “my garden, my rules. That’s how it works.”

“Everything is communal here,” Li-La reminded the girl. She then remembered she was speaking with a child. “Do you know what ‘communal’ means?”

“She’s eight, not an idiot.”

Li-La whipped her head around to find Ben Solo at the entry path of the garden. She stuttered for a moment, at a loss for words at the sight of him.

She rarely interacted with Ben Solo—hell, she never interacted with anyone at the academy unless Master Skywalker forced her to do so. Despite having social and diplomat parents, Li-La wasn’t fond of the limelight, preferring to linger closer to walls and doors, to seek an escape.

A garden seemed like a nice escape and one Master Skywalker informed her was at any one’s disposal.

He simply failed to mention a little girl kept guard.

“Rey, remember—”

“The garden is for everyone,” she droned in unison with him.

Ben frowned at the girl, Rey, but let her sassiness sly.

Glancing Li-La’s way, he waved almost shyly as though unsure to do with her.

She gave a closed mouth smile before standing up, sensing something tight in the air. “Um, I guess I’ll—”

“Can you get me the shovel—there’s a weed I need to get out,” the little girl order her before Li-La could slip away.

“Uh,” she looked over to where Ben Solo was working on his own section of the flower beds, as though Rey had put him to work without uttering a word. “Are you talking to me?”

Hazel eyes landed on her, exasperated. “Yes. Shovel now please.”

Feeling the demand, Li-La did as the girl ordered handing over the shovel. “Here you go.”

Rey plucked it from her grasp, turning to her work of adjusting the daffodils and pulling the weeds sprouting. Silently, she watched the girl work, fascinated how someone so young knew exactly what the plant needed and wanted.

“You have a soft feeling in the Force,” Rey told her quietly, hands deep in the soil. “Almost non-existent.”

“_Rey_,” came Ben’s warning call.

“But she does!” Rey cried out, sending a pout in his direction. Her eyes then landed back on Li-La. “But that isn’t a bad thing. It’s pretty, not too much but just right for you. Sometimes I think I have too much,” she muttered as an afterthought.

A tired sigh sounded from Ben, but no vocalized scolding’s.

Feeling a warmth a the girl’s odd compliment, Li-La crouched beside her. “It’s soft because I am not strong in the Force. I’m just…_sort of_ sensitive to it.”

“Then why are you here?”

“_Rey_!”

The girl groaned, ready to flop over in aggravation. “I’m just—”

“It’s okay,” Li-La assured the two, refraining a giggle at their theatrics. She shrugged. “It’s a valid question.”

Ben didn’t seem to buy it, sending Rey a stubborn frown. But the girl grin smugly, as though winning a heated argument.

“My parents sent me here to get better at the Force,” she explained quietly. “But I think I’m already as good as I’m going to get.”

A silence lulled over the three, Li-La feeling a flush consume her as she realized what exactly she confessed. Being the least Force sensitive being on the planet…she kept that information firmly with herself, but in the presence of Rey and Ben she felt compelled to tell the truth about her situation.

“Well, I like you just the way you are. Good with the Force or not good with the Force.”

For once Li-La felt welcomed at the academy.

* * *

“I see you and Milo are getting along,” Luke commented one morning over breakfast. He’d been observing the boys in their classes, the tension once clouding their interactions gone.

Looking up from his fruit mix, Ben sent his Uncle a withering stare. While his nephew would wake up before the sunrise, his sleeping habits did not indicate he was a morning person.

“Took some time, but yes.”

“You listened to me,” the Jedi Master said plainly. A bit impressed with himself; he knew he could get through to his nephew

“I considered your suggestion,” Ben corrected, stabbing his fruit. “I just went about it my own way.”

“Which is?”

“I made Rey his sparring partner.”

Luke choked on his caf.

“You _what_?”

Ben rolled his eyes, impatient. “I made Rey his sparring partner.”

“You were supposed to be his sparring partner!”

“How am I supposed to tutor him _and_ be his sparring partner,” Ben shot back. “I can’t correct him if I am deflecting blows and I don’t trust myself to be tame on him. A bantha should not take a loth cat as an opponent.”

The Jedi Master choose to ignore how his nephew compared himself to a bantha and a fellow student to a loth cat, Ben sometimes truly Han Solo’s son.

“And I trust Rey, I can tell her to reel it back in or go full force without saying anything,” Ben clarified, his logic withstanding.

“Through the bond?”

Ben nodded once.

Luke’s eyes narrowed on him. “I know you want to keep this bond between you and Rey, _between you and Rey,_ but…Kid, you two are going to have to figure out how this actually works sooner or later.”

“And we’ll figure that out when she is older.” The seventeen year old gave a noncommittal shrug.

“But she is too advance for her age—I’ve never seen some like this in the Force since,” he faltered, optimist eyes meetings Ben’s guarded gaze, “well since you, Ben. And with you, you trained on your own for so long, think of the potential she’ll have if we work on honing on her skills now, when she is younger.”

“Then what was the point of giving her garden—I thought you were just going to let her be,” Ben hissed, his calm demeanor snatched away in an instant.

“To keep her busy, to make her happy, to not have her terrorize other students,” Luke listed off on his good hand. “I can go on…but it is a waste to let her roam and do what she wants. I understand she is not great with this type of structured leaning, but I think I can come up with a stronger approach—”

“I don’t want her to learn anything until she is of age,” Ben seethed out, “You said ten is the proper age to start teaching the students. She’d still eight—”

“Almost nine.”

“But it doesn’t matter. I know for a fact Jyn and Cassian wouldn’t want her to be sucked into the Jedi ideals.”

“And what are the Jedi ideals, Ben? Since you know them so well.”

“No emotion, no passion, no attachment,” he said in clear succession, not wasting a breath. “To follow the Jedi code, you need to cut yourself off from everything except the will of the Force.”

“That is crude summary of the Jedi Code,” Luke flared, remaining poorly put together at his nephew’s defiance. “And we don’t follow all the old rules.”

“But you want to,” Ben pushed his food away, choosing to drink is own cup of caf. “I can…sense it…you want this to grow. To be bigger than the fifty of us. But there is only one of you. Ambition leads to the dark side, Uncle.”

With those words, Ben stood up from his chair and left.

The Jedi Master’s lips pinched, worry stirring in his gut.

He needed to keep a closer eye on Ben and Rey…the two together was something he knew he could not let fall to chaos.

_There is no chaos, there is harmony._

* * *

As Rey learned to be kinder to her peers, Ben learned to _tighten_ his circle.

A circle that included Rey (obviously), Milo (understandably), and Li-La (surprisingly).

He could tolerate a few of the older students’ presences and opinions, but he regarded them with a grain of salt.

Luke noticed this change, the boy—no, young man—choosing to guard himself.

For what? Luke wasn’t sure.

Then again, he was mildly aware of the looks his students would spare Ben. The glowers, snooty raise of the nose, and sneers.

For once being the ‘star’ of the academy (academically and in practice he still truly held the title) Be Solo was detested and scorned by his peers.

_Jealously_, Rey had claimed when Luke attempted to get some information on the change of Ben’s attitude. _He can feel the meanness. And that he is your favorite._

So Luke did what needed to be done

“I am changing your status,” Luke announced during their one-on-one session.

Ben paused mid-swing, the droid dummy also coming to halt.

“My status?”

“You will be promoted to a Knight—a Jedi Knight.”

His nephew’s lips twisted together, brows furrowed as waves of disappointment crashed upon him.

“I don’t want to be a Jedi Knight,” he murmured, hitting the dummy when the droid wasn’t paying attention. Luke pinched the bridge of his nose; his nephew seemed to have an absolute distaste for droids. “Knights get sent off world.”

“Supply runs and little trips to meet other young, Force sensitives.” Luke waved the droid away with the Force, turning to face his nephew head on. “Not missions like the old order.”

“I’m not going off world,” Ben declared, tucking his wooden practice saber away into his belt. “Nothing you do, including Knighting me, will make me consider it.”

Luke held back his tongue. His quiet and sullen nephew had a hidden spitfire, one only few had the unfortunate privilege to witness.

“Then you will stay,” the Jedi Master began, broaching on to a compromise, “But you will instruct the younger students and oversee the classes when the Knights and I go off-world.”

Ben’s eyes lifted to him, curious. “Second-in-command?”

“More so a proxy in the event of my absence.” Luke shrugged nonchalantly. “Which won’t be often. But I think you’ll have a natural ease instructing the young students, most often have happier thought when they see you.”

The tips of Ben’s ears flushed, he clearing his throat. “But don’t Knights get lightsabers?”

Luke reached into his cloak, producing the hilt of the old and tested lightsaber. He held it out to his nephew, waiting for him to the offered tool.

As seconds passed, the young man realized the implications. Ben’s eyes widened, a small gasp escaping him.

“I can’t.”

“It’s yours,” Luke insisted, his arms still outstretched. “It was once mine before I made my own, and…” He took a deep breath, before following through—he made a decision, he needed to uphold, “…and it was your grandfather’s.”

“Grandfather? I thought Bail Organa—”

Luke scoffed; leave it to Leia to never go into details regarding their relation. “Your _other_ grandfather. Your biological grandfather. The father your mother and I share.”

“Oh,” Ben uttered, sounding more like a boy than a man. “I mean, I knew—well, figured. But never…never thought about it.”

His palm hovered over the lightsaber, before snatching his hand back to his side.

“I’m…I’m afraid to use it. I don’t _want_ to use it.”

“Are you afraid you’ll hurt someone?”

Ben swallowed, refraining an answer.

Blinking away whatever lingering misjudgment he had, his nephew took the offered lightsaber and latched it on his belt.

“Thank you…Master. I’ll take good care of it in your stead.”

Luke’s lips twitched at the formality, a smile begging but his heart sinking.

“That’s all I ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH BEN. I LOVE YOU.
> 
> Who do you think was the darkness protecting the light in Milo's sensing? I know....but do you know?
> 
> We'll be jumping some time SEVERAL times in the next chapter. 
> 
> Also, we met Li-La! She is an original character, same as Milo, but they do serve a purpose in this story.


	16. Nightmares & Visions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typos will be fixed later!
> 
> Enjoy :D

* * *

A package arrived nearly a year their stay at the academy. At least three dozen mail markings and layered parchment and fabric covered the box, though Rey and Ben knew who it was from the moment Luke handed over the package.

“Open it in Ben’s hut; I don’t want the other kids to see considering material attachments are—”

“—forbidden,” the two supplied readily, unable to hide their giddiness.

Jyn and Cassian hadn’t forgotten about them (not that Rey nor Ben ever doubted, but they were on assignment and no one in their little mix-matched family knew when they’d be reunited) and kept true to their promise.

Rushing through the academy at deft speeding, the two shut the blinds and closed the cloth draping of Ben’s hut, ready to open their package. Snipping off the binding and cloth with a pocket knife, Ben crouched down on the floor with Rey and wiggled off the lid of the box.

_What is it? What is it? What is it?—_bounced off the walls of the bond, Ben shooting Rey a look, one she did not notice in her excitement.

Inside, a simple parchment, dark red scarf, and a holo disc.

The two frowned.

Picking up the parchment, Ben nodded for Rey to come to his side, the two hovering over the painstakingly written words.

_R & B,_

_We hope this package finds you well. We sent it three standard months into our assignment in hopes to dissuade any suspicious eyes. Our assignment is on a need to know basis, but we can say we are safe and well, merely collecting intel at this time. Though we cannot say when exactly our assignment will migrate from intel to action, we believe correspondence will be difficult in the foreseeable m_ _onths. But we knew that when we said our goodbyes…_

Ben handed Rey the parchment. “You can keep reading it and tell me what it says.”

“Why?” Rey asked, always one to get straight to the point.

“Think of it as a lesson,” Ben explained as he ambled over to his desk. Sitting down, he reached for his notebook and calligraphy pen. He dipped the tip in the inkwell, sparing a small glance to her over his shoulder. “Except, you aren’t going to tell me, as in speaking to me, what it says. You are going to show me exactly what it looks like through the bond—”

“_Shh_!” Rey hissed, rushing up to him. “Mama and Papa says we can’t tell anyone.”

Ben poked her top bun with the end of his calligraphy pen. Rey swatted at him. “And we won’t. We just should practice, see what exactly we can do with the bond. In the safety of my hut.”

Her nose wrinkled in disagreement, but she complied. “Fine. I don’t like it, but _fine_.”

She then stomped away to the bed, curling up into a corner with the letter and her favorite blanket. Yet as seconds rolled by the girl fell asleep, curled up in a ball and parchment crumpled by her chest.

Sighing, Ben returned to his calligraphy.

He was always calmer after working on his letters.

* * *

No other packages came after, Rey and Ben clinging to the few items they received.

The slim red scarf tucked away under Ben’s long sleeves.

The letter hidden under Rey’s pillow.

And a holo disc neither knew how to open. And instructed to _not to open_ until they heard word from Jyn and Cassian.

* * *

Nightmares became a normal occurrence after a year into their stay.

Waking up in the middle of the night in a panic only to realize it wasn’t their own panic but the other’s—the other side of the bond.

Both attempted their best to hide their sleeping issues, keeping their conversations regarding their nightmares wrapped safely in their bond. For Ben it was easier, a night-owl. He’d stay up until he was positive Rey had received a few hours of sleep before turning in for the night as well. He’d then wake up early to prevent any lingering nightmares on his end to slip through.

And it worked…until it didn’t.

Because somewhere along the way their nightmares were simultaneous and all encapsulating to the senses, neither knowing where the horrors began and ended. Neither knowing what was from their own psyche or from the other’s.

Two years of hiding their struggles did nothing as they each reached their breaking points.

Rey, who continued to cry throughout the night and waking her roommates, could barely get a couple of hours of sleep. Ben was no better, he at one point refusing to go to sleep for days at a time to prevent any of his night terrors to bother Rey.

A failed attempt considering he fell asleep mid-lecture, leaving the young padawans to draw on his face.

Luke knew he needed to do something about the issue. Fast.

“Do either of you know what is causing the nightmares?”

“That’s a stupid question,” Ben muttered, heavy bags under his eyes. “If we knew, we wouldn’t be having them anymore.”

Beside him, an eleven year old Rey yawned, slumping against Ben’s shoulder.

“I’m asking if you sense a source.” Luke’s eyes darted to Rey, who was already fast asleep against her older companion.

“As in something is out to get us?”

“Maybe.” Luke hummed thoughtfully. “Or maybe the Force is trying to tell you two something. Or maybe you are just anxious and paranoid and it is manifesting into your dreams.” He tsked. “I believed the paranoia more than anything else I listed.”

Ben scowled. “And why do you think it is _my_ paranoia? It could easily be, Rey’s.”

The two glanced down to the girl, she lost to world in her slumber.

“I highly doubt it is hers,” Luke told him bluntly. “What could she possibly be paranoid about?”

His nephew’s face darkened, a protective arm placed over the girl. “Plenty, Uncle. Plenty.”

At Ben’s touch, Rey face smoothed, she sleeping far more peacefully than she’d been seconds ago.

“Huh.” The Jedi Master scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “Does she sleep well when she’s near you?”

Looking down at her, Ben’s mouth pinched, unsure. “Maybe? She does take naps during our partnered meditations.” The twenty year old rolled his eyes. “She’s not lazy—she just finds them boring.”

“I think I might have a solution to our little problem.”

* * *

“Do you mind sharing a hut with Rey?”

Li-La looked up from her sketch pad, her imitation of the drooping sunflower before her forgotten at the sight of Master Skywalker.

“Uh, no. I don’t mind. But may I ask why?” While the sixteen year old was close to Rey, she wasn’t entirely keen on sharing a room with the girl.

The Jedi Master appeared conflicted, sparing a glance around the empty garden.

“She…isn’t sleeping well. Neither is Ben,” he added hastily. “And I need someone I trust to room with her, who…won’t be a babbler.”

She raised an eyebrow at the term. “And that’s me?”

“Yes,” he nodded once. “I’ll show you where it’s at, come along.”

He turned on his heel, expecting her to follow. The Master had a tendency to believe anyone would follow his lead without batting an eye. Li-La didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news to tell him most of the time it was the exact opposite. She did not find the man to be the most adequate leader at the academy. Though she’d never tell him.

Scrambling up, she flung her crocheted bag over shoulder and chased after the man, falling into step with him.

“Is she having nightmares?” Li-La asked quietly. Master Skywalker led her down the familiar path of the huts, by passing her own hut in the process. “I remember her mentioning them.”

Master Skywalker gave a vague grunt, choosing to continue down the crudely cobbled path. He brought her down the lower level of huts, the wood and stone adobes closer to the edge of the academy and by the forest.

He stopped at the second to the last, opening the door flap. He motioned for her to come in, stepping into the hut himself.

Two beds were situated in opposite corners of the hut, one free of any coverings and blankets, while the other already had a couple of tossed around garments and tomb flipped over on its side.

Rey apparently already moved in.

“She may or may not sleep here at night,” Skywalker began to explain. With a wave of his hand he tidied the younger girl’s side of the hut, the tomb righted and clothes removed from the floor. “You see she and Ben have a connection—”

“They can speak to each other through their minds,” Li-La interjected before Skywalker could dance around the matter.

“Uh, yes. Um—how do you know?”

She shrugged, taking a seat on her bed. “Spend enough time around them and you can tell they are communicating on another level.”

“Well, yes,” he murmured, a bit aggravated by the turn of events. “They struggle sleeping and I believe being in a closer proximity to each other will help. So if she is gone in the middle of the night—”

“She’s with Ben?” she supplied. “And not to worry?”

“Exactly. See this is why I asked you,” he smiled politely. “And maybe being around Rey will help you with your studies. She’s a natural in the Force.”

Her mood deflated at the remark. “Of course Master,” she nodded once, a half bow to him. “I think I’ll get to moving my belongings. If you’ll excuse me.”

Leaving the hut, Li-La attempted to calm her breathing. The sting behind her eyes increased with every step she made, willing herself to relax.

Four years at the academy and she was still in basic training with the younger padawans, the eldest in their group. As the days passed it became increasingly obvious Li-La’s skills weren’t going to improve, no matter the effort she put forth. So she focused on her other skills—sketching, help Rey and Ben with the garden, learning about new recipes for their meals. Master Skywalker thought it to be clever she honed in on her other courses, even giving her an opportunity to work with R2-D2 on organizing the maps and texts in the temple’s modest library. A tedious task but one she adored, keeping track of all the coordinates of the places she found interesting and noting them in the back of her sketchbook.

Scrubbing her face, Li-La continued her way up the path.

From the distance she spotted Milo with Ben out on the open training grass across from the huts. The two were in deep conversation, faces pinched and frowing. She forced a smile at the two, ignoring how her chest tightened at the sight of _him_.

Once she passed, she hurried along and packed her belongings. She didn’t want to let her silly little thoughts wander for too long, after all, it was against Jedi Code to have romantic attachments.

* * *

_The dream was the same every single time._

_Ben fell back, into the pit. Never to be seen again._

_Rey left alone in a terror of water. _

_The surface slick, her feet unable to gain tackion on the aged metal._

_Waves crashing over her, again and again._

_Until she couldn’t breathe._

_Crying out from him._

_A piercing, gut dropping cackle filling the air._

"You're coming together will be your undoing..."

* * *

Rey’s agonizing scream rattled the entire hut.

With a thud, Li-La fell out of her bed, groaning at the impact. Yet the hut continued to rattle, a couple of books falling off the low shelves. She stood up, rushing over to the girl, panic consuming her as she struggled to figure out what to do.

Was she supposed to get Ben?

Was she supposed to call for Master Luke?

Rey’s eyes were screwed shut, she whimpering into her pillow. Tears smeared her face, a broken sob leaving her tiny body.

Just as she was going to reach out to Rey, maybe wake her as best she could, the hut’s flap swooshed open.

Ben Solo came barreling in, Li-La making heed to get out of his way.

“Rey,” he hushed, sitting on the edge of the girl’s bed. He wiped away the sweat from her brow, hand gently caressing the dip of her jaw. “Rey—sweetheart,” he repeated, dropping his head lower to her. “Wake up, it’s not real. I’m right here,” he gulped deeply, a panic in his shaking bones. As though he were the one experiencing the nightmare instead of Rey. “I’m right here. I’m right here. I’m right here…” he repeated on loop, pulling her close to his chest.

The usual spitfire girl looked small and fragile with Ben, more so a child than a powerful force sensitive.

Ben’s forehead pressed against the crown of Rey’s head, his hand brushing away her loose chestnut hair.

Faint murmurings filled the room. From Rey or Ben? She wasn’t sure, the weight between the two dragging a void in the room.

For the first time ever, Li-La swore she felt the Light and Dark settle around them in a silent battle of harmony.

A sharp gasp pierced the hut, Rey sobbing herself awake.

_“It’s okay…It’s okay…I’m right here…”_

Li-La stepped out of the hut before she could see anymore.

Stumbling backwards, she shuffled further away and down the path.

A cool breeze brushed by her, the wind’s touch a breathe of air.

“Li-La,” a voice called out to her.

Whipping around, she saw Milo standing a few paces up the opposite end of the path, no doubt coming from his own hut.

“Did…” he jogged over to her, out of breath, “did you feel that—”

“Suffocating Force?” she asked, hugging her arms around her chest. “Yes.”

“You know it was…” Milo motioned to her hut, his moppy light brown hair flopping in his face, “…_them_, right?”

Keeping her mouth shut, she nodded.

Milo sensed her fear, the curiosity in his eyes diminishing.

“You’re worried about her. About them.” He told her, not questioned.

Milo always knew the answer before anyone, objectively intuitive and clever. Li-La found it admirable and annoying.

She shrugged. “A little. They are…terrifyingly powerful. And rely on each other. _A lot_.” She coughed into her shoulder, another breeze whispering by. “The companionship they have, the attachment, it’s against Jedi Code.”

Milo hummed in agreement, but did not seemed bothered by this revelation. “I think they are the last one’s we should fear.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because they have compassion,” Milo answered. “For each other. And for so many other things…it is only frightening because we don’t understand it.”

Li-La found she could not argue.

“All I know is, if things ever go to batha-shit in this galaxy, I want to be on their side.

“That’s blind trust,” she scolded.

“That’s listening to the Force,” Milo shot back, mildly affronted. “And the Force tells me to trust them. What does the Force tell you?”

She glared at him, not bothering to waste her breath. Stubborn, she turned her attention back to her hut.

Just then, Ben Solo opened the flap. Curled against his chest was Rey, she half-awake and clinging to him like an infant—

_A figure shrouded in black—a creature in a mask— carried a young woman through the forest. Three familiar buns lined the back of the woman’s head, yet she could not see the rest of her—just her brown boots and lulling, dead weight arms. He carefully maneuvered through the thick wood, gazing down at her as though she held the answers to the galaxy._

_As though sensing someone watching, the figure’s head snapped to the right—_

_Staring right at her._

Li-La blinked the image away.

She hated it when her imagination got the best of her.

Seeing them, Ben nodded awkwardly and ducked into his hut with tear-streaked Rey.

On the sideline, Li-La and Milo could see into Ben’s hut, his hut flap wide open and oil-lamp on. Ben gently laid the girl on the bed and rolled out a mat for himself on the floor, realizing the window and door flaps were open, he shut them closed and blew out the light.

The two Force sensitives shared a pensive glance, neither knowing this would be the first of many nights they commiserated over their dear friends.

* * *

As nights passed, nightmares came few and far between the arrangement beneficial to both parties.

Luke was a little proud of himself for once again solving a Rey-and-Ben problem.

However, his fears did not fade…

He felt a darkness rising within the depth of his academy and he prayed it was not who he believed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LI-LA THAT WAS A VISION DAMN IT. What am I going to do with you *shakes head*
> 
> And before you ask, Li-La does not like Ben. She likes SOMEONE ELSE.
> 
> Also did you guys like how I slipped in the TROS dream...hmmmmmmm.
> 
> Main Question: Who seems to be slipping to the dark side at the academy?????


	17. A Devotion For the Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typos will be fixed later!
> 
> Might have one more chapter for this week and then mini-hiatus! :D
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

Opening her locket, a faint blue glow shined.

A silently giggling Rey and Ben, forever trapped in the age of four and thirteen.

Her heart constricted at the sight.

Briefly she wondered if Rey cut her hair, or if Ben finally grew his out. How tall both had grown…if Rey had finally leaned to master meditation, or if Ben still went on his morning hikes.

Five years had a way of passing in a blink of an eye. Collecting intel on Leia’s potential assassins caused the couple to fall down a rabbit hole of linked missions and assignments. Each and every one coming from the rapidly growing and hydra-like First Order.

The radical group wanted Leia Organa to disappear for some obscure reason. In fact, they wanted several senators and officials in the New Republic to vanish, a series of politicians found dead in their homes or offices.

It was quick, to the point deaths. But deaths nonetheless.

Jyn and Cassian came to the conclusion the First Order was the same Empire-fanatic group they observed years ago; one they believed was nipped in the bud.

But clearly not.

The secrecy and covertness of their assignments led to nonexistent communication to Rey and Ben.

Odd to think in less than a few weeks they’d have been _without_ the children longer than they had ever been with them.

She wanted to rectify that fact as soon as possible.

“You shouldn’t be looking at that here.”

Jyn snapped the locket shut, dropping it back under her shirt. The cool metal hit her collarbone, the circular shape sitting beside her kyber crystal necklace. Her mother and her children, close to her heart, where they should be.

“I know,” she breathed. “I just miss them.”

Looking up from the key-code panel he disabled, Cassian’s warm brown met her tired blue.

“I do too. And once we are done here, we can finally get them. Go home. Be a family again.”

Jyn felt the pull of a smile, but refrained. She needed to be stern, she needed to be focused.

The hiss of the door releasing spurred the two into action, rushing into the enclosed room. A series of screens blinked alive at their entrance, Jyn on alert. She’d disabled the cameras in the building, but that did not mean she was to be at ease. The small base was located on a Outer-Rim planet, a series of failed hyperspace jumps and cross referencing several outdated maps to get to the correct location.

Digging into his pocket, Cassian found the chip-code and inserted it into the computer.

A few override keys were punched in, the anticipation building in the two.

They just needed to obtain the main base’s location and list of targeted officials then return to Leia, pass on the information, and go back for their kids. Simple and easy.

“This…this is not the right list,” Cassian murmured, eyes locked on the screen.

Jyn whipped around from her post by the door, forehead scrunched. “What—what do you mean—”

“This isn’t a list of politicians…it’s a list of planets and…numbered identities.”

_……AG-4697……._

_…………ER-1129………_

_…………………FN- 2187………………….._

“It—it can’t be.”

Jyn’s gut dropped as the reality and purpose of the list donned on her. “It’s a resurrection of the Stormtrooper program.”

She and her husband shared a weary, fearful stare.

Cassian looked away, biting his lips together. “If…if we bring this to her—to any of them—we will not be able to go home. We’d get sucked back in; like always.”

“Are you…” Jyn blinked, astonished, “are you suggesting we don’t tell them what we found?”

“Who’s to say we found anything?” Cassian countered, keeping his eyes trained on the control board. “We can say it was a dead end—”

“Peoples lives are being stolen—their children taken away and made into monsters.” Jyn took a step back, her hand tightening on her blaster. “You know what those programs are like and you just want to leave these innocent people—”

“_I want to go home, Jyn_!” Cassian slammed the edge of the board, arm quaking. “I’m tired. I already fought in one war, I am not about to start fighting in another.”

“But you’ve already started,” she hissed, “the moment we agreed to take Rey and Ben in—that was us signing our privacy and life away.”

His face darkened, hands gripping the control panel for dear life. “No—that was us being decent people.”

“And ignoring _this_,” she pointed to the list on the screen, “is being decent people?”

Her husband screwed his eyes shut, an heavy sigh exhaled through his nose. “I’m just saying…if we don’t succeed at this, then we can leave. Have an out now—don’t you want to see Rey and Ben again?”

“Of course I do!” Jyn licked her lips, willing herself to not lose control—to not cry in the middle of a mission. “But I also know I cannot let this just slip by—it can change the tide of this potential war—”

“Then you’ll take the information to her, right?” Cassian nodded solemnly. “Doesn’t matter what I do or ask. You will still go charging head first into another war.”

Jyn blinked, shoulder sagging. “Cas…don’t be like this. Fighting is the right thing to do; giving the Senator the information is necessary.”

“If that’s the case…if we are given another mission, you are going by yourself.”

“What?” Her voice cracked. “We are a _team_.”

“And we always will be,” he assured her, resting a hand on her shoulder, “but I can’t fight for something I don’t believe in. We are sticking our nose into Outer-Rim business. We already did our job, Jyn. We found the assassination plans…we can hand that information over and be done.”

“And what do you believe in, Cassian?”

“I believe in us and I believe in the kids.”

His hand found hers, clinging for dear life.

He loved her, deeply and desperately, as she did him.

That would never change.

Jyn would remind herself this every day, whether Cassian was by her side or not.

“Then I know what I have to do.”

* * *

Rey had a crush.

And it was disgusting.

Mostly because Ben was completely and utterly intolerable as he watched Rey and the boy—Kniall—practice fighting with wooden sabers.

“It is normal for girls to have crushes, Ben,” Li-La reminded him as she scanned over another text. Master Skywalker had gone on a solo trip to a far off, seemingly unreachable temple. He returned with several ancient texts, passing them off to Ben and Li-La to manage and maintain.

Ben, of course, was coping every single possible word into his own notebooks while Li-La actually attempted to restore the tombs.

“She’d going easy on him,” he muttered, twiddling with his calligraphy pen. He craned his neck higher, attempting to look down at the training field from the open stone window of the temple library. “Come on, Rey. Strike him down. It’s not that damn hard.”

He suddenly recoiled as though slapped in the face.

“She shut me out!” he whined. Shutting his notebook and ancient text, Ben scrambled up, ready to march out the library and down to Rey to give her a piece of his mind. “She never shuts me out!”

Li-La rolled her eyes. She knew this day would come.

The day where Ben realized he wasn’t going to be the light of Rey’s life forever.

She simply thought they had a couple of more years, but hey, girls matured faster than boys.

“Don’t go stomping to her—you’ll embarrass her.”

“I can do whatever I damn well please!”

He was gone and dashing down the path before Li-La could call out another word.

Coming to window, Li-La watched as the hulking and lanky form of Ben Solo ambled through the academy and down to the grassy training grounds.

Rey whipped around to him before he was within reaching distance.

She kicked him in the shins. Ben yelped.

“_Ouch_,” Li-La hissed, hands squeezing together as the scene further unfolded before the entire academy.

Both of their mouths were moving furiously, the twenty-three year old and fourteen year old bellowing at each other in the middle of the field.

Most students walked by without sparing a glance.

Rey and Ben arguing was not an uncommon occurrence. These days, it was an hourly event.

But poor Kniall, he stood for a moment, watching the battle of words before simply walking away.

This resulted in Rey shoving Ben on his ass and marching down the path to the huts. Without missing a beat, Ben chased after her, catching up with his young companion.

A violent shift occurred on the planet, the ground shaking. A few knick-knacks rattled off their perches, tumbling to the ground.

Li-La caught the texts beside her before they tumbled to the ground.

So much for having a quiet afternoon.

* * *

“Leave me alone!”

“I can’t, that’s not how the Force Bond works!”

Rey groaned, skipping a step as she came closer to her hut. Whirling around, she glared up at Ben, nose to his chest.

“I was fine! Why did you came to my training session?”

“Because you were going easy on him,” Ben explained, “and as your Master—”

“You’re not a Master,” she corrected swiftly, “you are barely even a Knight!”

“As your _instructor_,” Ben said with a faint eye roll, “it is my job to makes sure you are pushing yourself to the best of your ability.”

“And interrupting my session does that?” she asked. Rey crossed her arms over her chest, standing to her full height, still and forever a sorry comparison to Ben’s stature.

“Yes! Because Kniall is an idiot—he is only here because he begged his parents. I don’t even think he is Force sensitive.”

Her eyes narrowed on him, seeing right through his excuses like glass. “You can sense him in the Force—of course he’s Force sensitive.”

“Force sensitives can sense any living being in the Force,” Ben explained, plain and to the point. “You’d know that if you paid attention in class.”

She scoffed, leaning against the opening of her hut. “Li’anna is boring.”

“Li’anna is your elder and instructor.”

“Even you think she is boring,” Rey shot back with a knowing grin. “I know what you think, _remember_?”

Ben chewed on the inside of his cheek, unable to argue with the truthful statement. Years of training only led to two bonded to seemingly hit a stalemate in their connection. Two steps forward led to one step back; they’d be able to communicate their thoughts through the Force, but then would be unable to send images. Or vice versa. They’d be able to anticipate the other’s move, yet somehow still end up in a heap of bruises and tangled limps if one of them tripped during sparing.

Yes, the bond was easier to navigate as Rey grew up, but it was by no means _easy_.

Especially when the two could pluck and go sifting in the other’s head whenever they so pleased, or absentmindedly projected a thought to the other.

Like when Rey thought Kniall was cute with dark moppy hair, the thought broadcasted in high definition to one Ben Solo.

“All I am saying is…” He inhaled deeply, shoulder hunching as he met her gaze as he attempted to formulate the adequate words.

If was unfair, how Ben continued to grow and be this massive human being, while she would continue to fall behind to his stride. The sight of him slouching to meet her gaze caused her to feel like a five year old again, relying on Ben to help her reach the top of the kitchen shelf.

“…Can you please not like that kriffing nerfherder?” Ben’s hands rested comfortably on her shoulders, he staring down at her with warm, kind—if not intolerable—honey-brown eyes. The rest of the world fell away and it was just them, talking. Being together. Both loved those moments.“He’s an annoying shit in class and I’d rather have you hang out with someone who appreciates you and not just using you to get ahead in their training.”

“If you think I like him—” she made chocking sound from the back of her throat “—you are even dumber than I thought you were.”

Ben’s eyes narrowed on her, but didn’t fight the quickly deflection. “Alright…I will believe you. For now.”

She hummed, appreciative of his cooperation, a rare commodity concerning Ben.

Turning back into her hut, Rey went looking for her weathered, tanned satchel. “Are we still on for our hike? Because I think I found the perfect spot, one no-one else has touched. Perfect for practice.”

Holding the hut’s door flap open for her, Ben gave a small smile. One reserved just for Rey. “Of course.”

* * *

Over the hill, Luke watched as his nephew and young padawan dashed down the familiar path into the woods. An infectious squeal came from the former as Ben lifted her into his arms in one swift motion. She shoved him off in a stubborn fling of arms, a hearty chuckle erupting from Ben.

An easy comradery. A simple love. Once a subtle hint of brilliance in the Force.

Yet…

A grave sigh came from the Jedi Master. Darkness seemed to cloak the two, waiting to dig it’s claws into their essence and drag them to its depths. And he could address the problem, speak with them, meditate and have the other students join in a cleanse and release—get the darkness out.

The only problem: Luke unable to decipher the owner.

That was the tricky thing with the Force Bond, signatures were muddled and the dance between light and darkness constantly changed leader. These days it seemed the light was bowing to the darkness, the glow a willing consort and no longer a playful friend. An underlying devotion both intriguing and terrifying.

Jedi Master Luke Skywalker was no fool—he _saw_ the way Rey looked at Ben. A girl with a silly crush, her less than sunny disposition brightening at the sight of him.

To him it was obvious; Rey was the glow in the force, as she’d always been, devoted to the darkness…his nephew.

His gut gnawed on itself at the thought. They were innocent in their actions, Rey still a child and Luke positive Ben did not view her in any other light but as his dear little friend. But he could sense in five years’ time their relationship could become something _more_…a relationship on the borderline of breaking code.

A relationship to become consumed with the dark.

From his vantage point Luke saw Ben kneel before Rey, he motioning behind him, for her to hop on his back. Rey paused, standing tall—taller—before Ben. An air of superiority and fierce gentleness exuded from her, an ancient regality…and he looked at her as though she were the sun, a good-natured teasing grin.

And then he saw it—

A shadow of what could have been his mother and father.

Fear clenched his heart, yanking down to the depths of the soil beneath his feet.

_No._

_No. No. No_.

The galaxy did not need to be torn to shreds in the name of ‘love;’ better yet dangerous infatuation. The Jedi let the matter slip by once, the crux of their demise. And Luke could _not_ make the same mistakes.

He knew what he had to do.

* * *

The transporter was smaller than Cassian anticipated, though he could not complain.

After all, Han agreed to meet him out in the middle of nowhere in the Outer Rim.

He just merely expected the Falcon to be his ride.

“She was stolen a few years back.”

“Does Leia know?”

“Leia and I are not exactly simpatico at the moment.”

Cassian grunted in understanding, hunching low in the lower co-captain’s seat. The tiny rust-bucket was an uncomfortable contraption but did its job, taking its pilot from port to port with little issues.

“How about you? Thought I’d be picking up both you and your spitfire.”

Before Cassian could say another word, Han beat him to the punch, babbling on as he punched in a few coordinates to take anyone off their tail. “I mean, I’d understand if you and her are not on great terms either. Women like my Princess and your gal are not easy to contain and they shouldn’t be contained. Got too much to give to the world, ya know?”

The bitterness in his tone was not lost on the Captain, Han’s vague resentment towards his wife once again peeking through the curtains of casual attitude.

“Jyn’s gone.”

Han glanced back at him. “Gone? I got that, but ‘gone’ where?”

Cassian chewed hard on the inside of his cheek, willing himself to speak. “Gone. As in gone _for good_.”

Han’s hands paused over the control panel.

“You mean…”

“Yes.”

Silence fell over the two, the faint ticking and beeping of the transporter becoming white noise.

“Shit.”

“_Yeah_.” Cassian leaned back in his seat, hand gripping the armrest. “It’s…difficult to think…to-to even…”

“I can’t imagine,” Han sighed, running a tired hand over his weary face. Another lapse of silence fell before Han asked the begging question, “What are you going to tell the kids?”

“I don’t know,” his eyes then latched on Han, “have you seen them?”

Clearing his throat, the older man started fiddling with the edge of the panel again. “Not recently, no. I visited a couple of years back.”

“_And_?” Cassian pressed.

A sardonic chuckle, empty and painful, came from Han. “I’m pretty sure Ben would be happy to never see me again.”

“Why’s that?”

Scrubbing his jaw, Han seemed to debate if he should speak any further, but the tight space in the cockpit left little room to flee Cassian’s imposing stare. “He wanted me to smuggle him and Rey off planet.”

Cassian’s stomach dropped. “Were they in danger?”

Han shook his head. “No-no, nothing like that. Just some homesickness, maybe little squabbles with some of the other students…but he was so upset I told him ‘no.’”

“Maybe he had a reason? Ben isn’t one to beg or ask for help,” Cassian reminded him.

“I think that’s some wishful thinking,” Han declared growing increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation. “He said he had a bad feeling…” he huffed, a jiggle to his leg, “…but I talked to Luke. It is practically an impenetrable fortress there. The kids are safe.”

“But are they safe from each other?”

“Kids are kids. What’s the worst they can do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IS JYN REALLY "GONE"? Cassian was pretty vague...…..
> 
> AND LUKE. OH LUKE.


	18. Fire Licks and Burns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typos will be fixed later!
> 
> Warning: Mentions of death and blood. Though no major character deaths.

* * *

Her feet pounded on the ground, her blood thudding in her ears.

She never ran this fast in her life. Never with fear pulsing through her veins and desperate need to reach the farthest patch of ground she could find. Not even on Jakku as a child with little voice and little say, did she think she'd die in an instant if caught.

A sharp snap of twigs and leaves under her feet echoed in the empty forest. She bypassed the markers and flags, her legs carrying her beyond the known paths of academy. The outcries grew louder as the other students gained traction.

Lungs burning, Rey pushed herself harder, calling out to the bond. Hoping and willing Ben would hear her. For Ben to do something, anything.

Yet every single time she called out, she was met with a fierce mental shove and a strict order to keep running.

Her stubbornness begged her to argue, to be defiant. However the tug and panic flooding from Ben’s side of the bond told her to listen because he wanted her to be safe.

And sometimes being safe meant running away.

_“You can’t run forever, murderer!”_

A sting of hot tears prickled behind her eyes, Rey ignoring the familiar voices calling after her.

Familiar voices chanting—

_Murderer, murderer, murderer, murderer, murderer._

Just as she was reaching the head of the stream, a once upon a time rendezvous point for them during their meditations (Ben always meditated better near water) a sharp pierce bloomed from her shoulder, caving from the inside out.

She caught herself on a tree before she fell into the stream, ragged breathes shaking through her entire body, an adrenaline buzz dashing from her fingers to her toes. Shakily, she pawed at her collarbone and shoulder blade, an insistent fear clawed at her throat that somehow in some possible way she was hit.

Illogical considering there was a good fifty yards away from her and the fastest student.

A slickness of blood pressed against her palm from her right shoulder.

_Kriff._

In a flash she removed her hand—to find it clean. Not a drip of smudge of blood.

She could have sworn—

_Fire swath the grounds, huts crumbled and gone to the burning rage. A clash of sabers cried in the flames. The image of the two licked in and out of sight, enclosed. _

_Yet students continued to jump into the fight, using gorilla tactics. _

_Pulling, kicking, shoving, yanking._

_Ben stumbled as another blow met his gut, only to be surged forward again when a foot connected with his back. _

_For a moment he continued to be tossed around like a rag doll, his once imposing height crumpling at the ferocity of the growing mob of assaults._

_Blood seeped through his beige tunic, spreading from his right shoulder and down the length of his arm. A limb weak yet pushing through the pain._

_The pain she felt through the bond._

_His eyes flashed up from his opponent, brown connecting with her panicked hazel._

_“GO! I told you to go!”_

A rough shove brought her back to the present.

Footfalls sounded closer than before.

Logically, Rey knew she needed to listen to Ben. To keep running until he found her.

But she couldn’t—_wouldn’t_—allow him to be on the brink of death. Alone. Fighting an unfair fight. It wasn’t right, the wrongness of the act rattling her bones.

Ben needed her, even if he didn’t realize it.

Clenching her teeth, Rey dashed off up stream. A circumference trail of the outskirts of the academy wasn’t used often, she and Ben relying on the path when they needed to get back the grounds without prying eyes.

It’d take time, but it was the safest option to get back instead of backtracking and running into the students charging after her. Students rushing to be the first to kill her.

If she pushed hard enough, Rey could make it back to the academy grounds in no time.

Hopefully.

* * *

“Grab those! Wait—and those too!”

Milo grabbed the stacks of books she pointed at and shoved them into the pack. Two full bags were already slung over his shoulders, weighing down on him. Sparing a glance out the open, stone window, he witnessed students be cut down by each other’s own ambitions to be _the one_ to avenge Master Skywalker.

To kill Ben because Ben killed Skywalker.

A harsh pill of reality neither Li-La or Milo had time to swallow because…well because it didn’t _sound_ like Ben. Their friend was a gentle spirit, taking care of all living things despite his rather prickly attitude.

But _killing_? Ben squirmed in history classes when the deaths of the original order were brought to light. He squirmed when they had to even kill for food, a necessary death in the circle of life.

Ben wasn’t a killer. A fact both Li-La and Milo seemed to silently acknowledge when Ben swiftly projected an order to Milo through the Force when the academy went to bantha-shit.

Another hut in the distance fell victim to the fire, the horror spreading at a rapid speed.

The academy was crumbling into ruins, _fast_.

And Li-La refused to leave anything useful behind.

Which apparently, in her mind, was everything.

“Li-La, I cannot grab everything! We need to be on the ship—like Ben told us!”

She whirled to him, arms full of ancient texts she studied for the last five years. Old companions to both her and Ben.

“But don’t you get it! We’re the last of the Jedi—we are all that is left of the order before and the order now! Skywalker isn’t even—”

With a careful hand, Milo grasped her firmly. “Li-La, _we need to go_. Before the other find out we’re here and we’re helping him. If need be, we can come back later.”

Both knew that wasn’t going to happen. Word would get out about what happened to the legendary Skywalker’s little academy hidden on a forest planet. How his nephew, powerful in the Force and grandson of the infamous Darth Vader, killed the last Jedi. Like grandfather, like grandson.

When they left—the four of them—there would be no turning back.

They’d be fugitives. Outlaws.

And no one would know the truth.

Eyes watering, she nodded. “Okay…” she exhaled, eyes darting around the room she’s been fond of while a student. The tall stacks and faded pages of the ancient world; before them, before the Jedi, when it was just the Force. The smell of ink, calligraphy pens scratching on the pages to preserve the truth and nothing but the truth. Her heart ached to say goodbye in such an abrupt and destructive way, but Li-La could not stay. “Okay. We’ll go. Now.”

Milo nodded once, a ghost of an understanding smile twitching on his lips. Gently, he pulled her along to the library entrance, leading the way. Just as they rounded the corner, a series of measure footsteps echoed off beat to theirs.

The two former students paused. The footsteps stopped half a second after them.

Milo whirled around, only to be met with the tip of a glowing yellow lightsaber pointed at him.

“Ah—I knew I’d find Solo’s friends here.”

Li’anna stood before them, sure in stance and confident nonchalance. Her perfectly placed blonde hair was mused and charred at the ends, soot dusting her face and shoulders. She been out in the fight and chose to find them for some incomprehensible reason.

Not that there was ever a ‘comprehensible’ reason to Li’anna’s actions. She was bore and stickler for the rules, yet she possessed a quiet hate towards authority.

Taking a step forward, she waved the saber in their faces, the two flinching to keep away from its yellow sizzle.

“Hand over the ancient texts, you traitors.”

“No,” Li-La bit out, hugging the books in her arms closer to her.

“I said, hand them over—”

“Why are you even here?” Milo inched forward, taking a half step in front of Li-La. “Shouldn’t you be on the front lines to kill Solo for killing our Master?”

A cruel scoff came from the back of her throat. “Do you really think Solo—wimpy, plant-loving Solo who _cried_ during the reading of Bastilla Shan and Revan in history class—killed Skywalker?” She swung her lightsaber closer to Milo’s neck, the two tensing. “I knew you two were not the best Force sensitives at this academy, but I never made you tomb-lovers out to be idiots.” The saber swung away, up and ready by her side. “I bet you the hide of my skin it was _the brat.”_

“Rey?” Milo hissed. “Rey wouldn’t—”

“Yet no one can seem to find the moppet,” Li’anna droned, twirling her saber absentmindedly. The yellow whooshed mere inches from Milo and Li-La, another threatening leer. “Good thing I sent the younger kids after her. She should be dead within the hour.”

“You bitch!” Anger coursed through Li-La, she unable to help but picture a helpless Rey running through the forest, fighting for her life. “She’s a child!”

“She’s a _nuisance_ and with her, Solo, and Skywalker gone, this academy might actually become something other than some radical cult. A respectable institution.”

The yellow saber swung tauntingly, nearly singing the end of Li-La’s brown tunic.

“But then there is _you_ _two_,” Li’anna sneered. “The faithful friends to the Grandson of Vader. I thought you two would be defending your friend’s honor, but no. You are here, running away, taking contraband.”

Milo’s jaw tightened, his grip on Li-La unrelenting.

The saber swung by again.

“Honestly, I don’t know I expect mor—”

In flash, Li-La charged towards Li’anna, forcefully shoving the books into the woman’s abdomen. A stunned wheeze escaped the older woman as she tumbled backwards and down to the stony ground, not expecting the brute force from the meek girl. Hands held out, Li-La scuttling away, eyes screwed shut.

The lightsaber, left unattended through the Force, was called—

Straight into Milo’s awaiting hand. He shut the weapon off, tucking it in his belt and reached for the back of Li-La’s cloak. He tugged, urging her to follow, yet she remained rooted.

Groaning, Li’anna attempting to stand back up.

“No!” Li-La shouted, the temple shaking.

Milo glanced up at the ceiling, pieces of debris tumbling down. They need to leave before they were trapped in the temple library for good. “Li-La, come on!”

With a ferocious wave down, Li-La called to the Force, for once in her life.

The ground shuddering violently, the walls surrounding Li’anna came crashing down.

A rough hand yanked Li-La along, dust consuming the halls in a frantic whirlwind. The air was clouded, the two struggling to wade through the battle of destruction.

“Did I—” Li-La wheezed, hand clasping on to Milo’s familiar callouses, “—did I do that?”

“I think so.”

A whine came from further out in the academy grounds, the mess hall’s metal dying in the flicker of orange and red flames.

Milo’s grip became iron. “We need to find the ship before we get stranded.”

Together, Li-La and Milo ran in the opposite direction of the academy and deep into west end of the forest.

* * *

Ben was sure he was going to die.

If not from the students attacking him, then from the fire.

And if not from the fire, then from his own fear and panic.

He’d been slashing and tossing and growling.

He’d been crying out and begging and pleading.

He’d been burning and bleeding, and coughing.

There was no end to the battle, even with the mercy he enacted.

Ben Solo did not want to kill, _he vowed to never kill_, yet he was reaching a point where there’d be no other option.

Kill or be killed.

Let his body become mutilated by the scorned students; students who’d once been his peers and padawans he instructed. Or kill them all for the sake of survival.

And then there was Rey and the bond.

Neither knew what death would do to the bond; neither felt the desire to discover.

However pain and wounds had a way of traveling through the bond during emotional distress. The fact Rey was in pain as he was at that very moment was not lost on Ben.

Silently, he prayed she was safe and hiding as he instructed. He just needed her safe and away.

Ben did not know what he’d do if _she_ was on the brink of death.

Probably destroy anyone in his path, his own vows and will be damned.

“What Solo?” A voice—Coy, a fellow Knight—called out. “Growing tired? Need to stop—need me to just end this already?”

Ben scowled at the Knight. Coy was never a bright one, relying on his brute strength rather than his relationship with the Force. He believed in his own capabilities instead of the will of the Force, finding meditation and historical studies useless.

Needless to say, Ben loathed working with him, often teased by the young man during their earlier days in the academy. Giving Ben a cruel smirk, Coy was evidently getting some enjoyment from his reckless and formless assaults.

The bronze color of Coy’s lightsaber shined dim between them, edging towards him. Ben’s own blue saber rose at the ready, prepared for the defense. Yet his muscles screamed in protest, begging him to stop. To just drop in exhaustion.

Let the world fade in a brilliant light and become one with the Force.

A tantalizing thought…

Until he remembered Rey.

And becoming one with the Force meant nothing if she was not by his side.

Bronze and blue lightsabers clashed in a spark of disillusioned light.

A swing up.

A shove.

A parry.

A lunge.

_ I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me._

_ I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me._

_I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me._

As Coy raised his arm for the final blow, the killing blow, the world stopped.

* * *

A great Force swept through the burning grounds, students knocked down and out.

Bones snapping, bodies slumping, breaths stilling.

One by one living Forces of life were plucked from existence, Ben feeling each one fade in an succession.

Plucked and removed like overgrown weeds in a garden.

Limbs heavy, Ben scrambled up from his patch of dirt. Wheezing, exhales sharp and low, he limped to the source.

The Force signature, dark and swirling, lashed with an unforgiving twist and jut. Slithering and attacking, riding on the adrenaline of uncontained pain.

A Force signature Ben knew well, possibly better than his own.

“_Rey_!” he cried out once he spotted her.

Arms out, she continued her onslaught of assaults. Students still rushing to her in fierce, naive determination. As though they had no fear against the girl who did not understand her own capabilities in the Force. Believing they could win.

They didn’t, their life force fading to wisp in a violent wave of an arm.

“_Rey, stop_!” Ben continued on his journey to her, bypassing dying students and unrelenting opponents. She stood atop of the highest peak of the training grounds, using the height as leverage.

Smart, clever; a complete Rey decision.

Yet her vicious actions…her skills in battle…that was something else. A portion of her pushed away and hidden in the depth of her psyche.

A darkness always there, but never used to its full extent. A frightening display.

One even Rey would ashamed of…if she was _aware_ of her actions.

Ben could not feel her through the bond, her end a dull pulse.

Panic gripped him, he surging forward. More life was plucked away, until there was one still on the grounds—

And then they were gone as well.

A few feet away, Ben stopped, swallowing cotton mouth away. “Rey! Rey stop—_please_!”

When she didn’t listen, he willed himself forward, non-bloody arm stretched out.

_Kill her._

_Kill her now. She’ll only hold you back._

_Like she is doing now._

The voice.

The damn voice that had been peeking and poking for the last years.

Ben screwed his eyes shut and shoved the voice away; he didn’t need to be taunted, damn it.

He needed to save Rey from herself.

“Rey—sweetheart,” his voice cracked. She remained unaware of him, seething in her own power. Her eyes were locked on a distance he could not see, the uncertainty of her being clawing within him. “Sweetheart, listen to me—stop. Stop whatever it is you are doing, that is going on in your head—stop it.”

He felt a faint pluck at the bond.

_I…am…trying…_

His hands clasped on her shoulders, Ben pressing his forehead to the crown of her head. His bloody and sweaty hair meshed with her loose chestnut strands.

“Come back to me,” he whispered, “this…this isn’t you. You don’t…you don’t kill. You don’t hurt…you are light.”

_No…I’m not._

“Yes, you are—_yes you are_!” he growled in the space between them, forcing her to believe the truth he possessed. “You are…and I’m here.” Ben inhaled deeply, one hand brushing away the overflowing tears streaming from her closed eyes. “I am here and I am not going anywhere. Like I promised. You’ll always have me…and you are the light in my life. You need to know that. Please, tell me you can hear me?”

He felt a small nod from her.

A weak sob then sounded from her, Rey crumpling against him.

“Shh…shhh.” Ben clasped her close, hiding her face away from the destruction they both caused. “I got you.”

Pressing a gentle yet firm hand against her forehead, Ben leaned on the Force.

Within a second, Rey passed out in his arms. Limp and out like a light.

Then, with a heavy heart, he wiped her memory of the last hour.

She didn’t need to know what she did; she didn’t need that guilt.

He’d take all the blame for that night. For all the deaths. And he wouldn’t want it any other way.

* * *

Shoving away the debris, a weary and exhausted Jedi Master crawled out from the mess.

To find his academy in ruin.

“Oh…no.” A weighty whimper erupted from him, Skywalker feeling for the first time in years, like a young lost boy.

He noticed the bodies…students…littered around the grounds.

All dead.

His heart clenched.

Scanning the fiery grounds, his eyes latched on a vague shadow.

A tall vague shadow carrying someone else.

Part of him wanted to run after the figure. To fight, to argue, to maybe seek a forgiveness he wasn’t sure anyone deserved from either pary.

Yet he didn’t, remaining rooted in the ground with R2-D2 by his side.

Skywalker then knew one truth— he failed in more ways than one that night. And it was failures that could never be undone.

* * *

“Do either of you know how to pilot?”

Li-La and Milo’s head whipped towards the ship’s entrance.

There Ben stood, Rey passed out in his arms, and the two covered in soot, mud, and dried blood.

A walking horror.

Swallowing, Li-La raised her hand. “Sort of.”

“I can work with ‘sort of’,” Ben croaked. He walked away from the cockpit’s entryway to the left of the ship, the bunks.

With careful hands, he gently set Rey on the bottom bunk, before coming over to the co-pilots seat. He motioned of Li-La to take the main pilot’s seat. She listened without another word.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Ben muttered, a distance in his words and eyes.

As though he’d seen a ghost.

“And go where?” Milo asked, buckling up in the jump seat beside Rey’s bunk.

Ben swallowed, punching in distinct coordinates. “Home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EKKKKKK.
> 
> YEAH.
> 
> Um.
> 
> That happened.
> 
> And now on to HIATUS for a couple of weeks with this fic!
> 
> Let me know what you think! :D


	19. From Ashes...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typos will be fixed later!
> 
> Enjoy :D

* * *

Burned ruins.

  
All Cassian could find was ash and rubble. A thick layer of soot covered the ground, his boot unable to leave a mark. Almost as though he were a ghost walking through a living nightmare.

  
"I can't see shit," Han grumbled from behind him... until he finally made it over the hill, joining Cassian. "What the maker happened here?" Han charged ahead of him, a panic to his step.

  
Cassian did not have the words nor air in his lungs to respond. His body felt weightless, unable to fathom the sight before him.

  
"BEN!" Han called out into the empty, desolate land. "SON!"

  
Not a soul echoed back.

With a hollow chest, Cassian allowed his feet to carry him directionless. His voice called out for Rey, for Ben, for his children until his throat gave out.

Hands grappled with stone and burnt wood, digging until there was nothing left to toss over his shoulder. Nothing else to lead him towards his Rey and Ben.

Until he heard a distinct crunch under his boot.

Kneeling, he dusted the corner of the metal object. With all his strength remaining, he pulled.

It gave.

And his heart sank.

In his hand was the disc--the disc he and Jyn gave them in the event of an emergency.

  
Squeezing his eyes shut, a silent sob ripped from the inside of his chest.

His children...they were gone.

And there was nothing Cassian could do.

* * *

"Ben, come and eat."

"I'm fine."

Li-La and Milo shared a concerned glance.

For the last two days Ben remained vigilant at Rey’s side. The young girl had been unconscious; her vitals, as far as they could comprehend, were healthy, yet…

“He’s going to have to eat eventually,” Milo hissed, a ration pack of jerky opened between them. “He can’t just be there with her forever—” Li-La jabbed his ribs. “What the fuc—”

She shushed him, motioning to the small sleeping quarters corridor.

Dim lights filled the common area, while the rest of the ship remained dark except for the safety foot lights. When Milo attempted to flick on more switches, Ben batted his hand away, muttering about conserving energy. Their next stop wouldn’t be for some days, Ben ordering Li-La to scramble the coordinates. None of them knew if Skywalker would be on their tail, but they made an effort to hide their trail. Nor did they know if their families were looking for them; unlinkely considering the academy’s unfortunate death toll.

Based on their brief discussion, they’d make a few different pit stops at some outposts, less hyperspace jumps, keep themselves off the radar. This left more time to linger and drift, their days empty as they planned their next mode of action.

Which seemed to be put on the back burner as their unofficial leader was despondent, only focused on their youngest member of their ragtag group.

The shadow of Ben’s form lingered by the bunks, he standing up for the first time for days.

He stretched out his arms and legs, a half step away from Rey’s slumbering form.

At the booth a few feet away, Li-La and Milo watched their friend with baited breath. “Maybe he’s going to…”

Swiftly, Ben sat back down on the edge of Rey’s bunk. Hand in hers, like it was another limb.

“Ah, well,” Milo shrugged, chomping on the eel jerky, “we tried.”

“No we didn’t,” Li-La hissed. She snatched the packet away from him. “We can’t let him sit there and wallow. We have to make sure he’s at least okay.”

“I’m not going near him like this.” Milo yanked the jerky back. “Ben is crazy protective of Rey—like he’d kill people for her. Probably _did_.”

“Ben’s a big softy.” Li-La took the packet back again, and tucked it in her back pocket. “And he needs us right now. I still don’t even know what happened that night.”

“Neither do I.” Milo’s eyes darted to where Ben sat. “All I know is everyone’s dead except for us.” Biting his lips together, he glanced back down at his hands. “And I don’t think I want to know what happened.”

She recoiled at his honesty, not expecting Milo to be so…afraid.

_ Fear leads the path to the dark side. _

Blinking, she shucked off the voice.

“Well, we are here. And we’re a family,” she rested a hand on his wrist, holding on tight, “we have to stick together now.”

“I know,” he murmured. Clearing his throat, Milo shook off her hand. “You should go and check on him.”

Hesitant to leave Milo alone, Li-La followed his suggestion. Shuffling over to the bunks, she sat down beside Ben.

Wordless, she shook the packet under his chin. “Jerky for your thoughts?”

His expression remained empty, Ben taking the packet after a second too long of waiting. He chewed silently on the jerky, his focus on Rey.

The girl laid asleep on the bunk, a standard-issue blanket tucked close to her chest. Despite being roommates for a few years, Li-La rarely witnessed Rey sleep. She’d always be with Ben, only able to sleep soundly when he was nearby. An odd fact no one in their inner circle discussed or deviled into. Not even now, with Ben exhausted and waiting for her to wake.

Sparing Ben a cautious look, Li-La ventured to brush a few strands of Rey’s chestnut hair away from her face.

Ben stilled.

A weary exhaled escaped him.

“I don’t know what we are going to do.”

“We find a place to settle until this all blows over.” Li-La wiped soot from under Rey’s jaw.

“We can never settle,” Ben’s voice cracked. Eyes bloodshot, he wiped his nose with the back of his wrist. “Don’t you get it Li-La? We’re murders.”

“No, we were defending ourselves—”

“Rey killed them all.”

Li-La’s hands paused, her thumb about to smooth out the younger girl’s brows.

“_What_.” She exhaled; the world must have been tipping, tripping, and falling.

“Rey killed them all.” He winced at the repeated phrase, face crumpling. A gentle young man folding over into a broken boy. “And I couldn’t do anything. She wouldn’t listen—it was like she was possessed and…” his voice faded into a rasp. “I love her so much…” he whimpered, “and all I could do was watch. And cry, like some fucking fool.”

Li-La’s lips parted, brown knit together. “You _love_ her?”

Ben inhaled sharp. For the first time his eyes landed on Li-La, daring her to make another sound. “It’s not like _that_.”

“Then what _is_ it like?”

“It’s more complicated than that.” He stared at her levelly, his usual honest eyes devoid of life. “When someone is your other half and lives here,” he tapped his forehead, “and here,” he then tapped his chest, “and knows you better than you know yourself and is just this…warmth,” he shrugged helplessly, “you can’t help but love them.”

Li-La blinked down at Rey. Sleeping, unaware…or possibly too aware. “How deep is your connection?”

Ben’s eyes steeled and jaw locked, guarded once more. “You don’t want to know.”

Under his defensive gaze, she realized certain questions were better left unasked.

* * *

_ Meanwhile… _

“What was your name again?”

“Jamin Rodna.”

“And why are you here again?”

“I need a place to go; the New Republic has displaced many of us faithful Imperialist.”

“This order isn’t a charity.” Admiral Hux sneered, the man far too young to be commanding new recruits, but one she faced with a calm demeanor.

“I am aware you are in need of a coder,” she said instead. “Someone to track and break, maybe teach a few skills.”

His beady eyes narrowed. “Where did you learn that information?”

“Word gets around our people.”

The ginger haired man hummed with ill-content, but did not argue. “She’ll do. Make sure to do a thorough background check, as well as a few skills test.” He glared down at her. “I’d rather not have a mangy liar in our midst.”

The men beside him nodded an affirmative, one taking each arm. Without further investigation, she was led away and into their upper division training camps.

Jyn’s plan was going exactly as she hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THE PLOT THICKENS.
> 
> Also if it wasn't clear enough, Ben loves Rey. BUT he is not IN love with Rey. You get?
> 
> We still got a few more chapters...and then another time jump *eyes emoji*
> 
> Also does anyone know where Jyn got her undercover name? It comes from two different characters she cares deeply about.


	20. A Blossom & Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, here is a quick chapter! :D
> 
> Typos will be fixed later.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> OH BY THE WAY--DONT MENTION OR TALK ABOUT SPOILERS FOR TROS IN THE COMMENTS, PLEASE AND THANK YOU!!

* * *

They made camp on a low populated moon in the outer rim.

Li-La knew it was temporary—a place to refuel, to bathe in real water, and eat more than ration packs.

A simple pit stop to assess their situation, breathe, and maybe cry a little. Because everything changed and they had no idea what to do, or where to go.

“We are only going to be here for two weeks, _max_,” Ben warned when they touched ground. “Don’t get too comfortable.”

Only two weeks. A temporary camp.

But that did not mean she could not make their short time on the moon feel like home.

So Li-La got to work. She enlisted Milos to help her, who did not get much say in the matter, and they made their camp more than a couple of pitched tents and bedrolls. Instead, they found the stream and boiled the water, planned meals and planned how to ration their food for the long run, and finally—after a standard week on the ship together—washed all their clothes. Working in tandem, she and Miles attempted to find normalcy amongst the chaos brewing in the galaxy—

And their own group.

After a day and a half comatose, Rey woke up.

Disoriented, looking for Ben.

And like a dedicated knight, he was by her side the entire time. Hand clutched in hers, never letting go.

Her memories of the night were spotty, much to all their relief.

She was worried the girl would remember and be consumed with guilt. Ben and Milo, on the other hand, thought otherwise. Or well, Milo thought otherwise, and Ben kept mum on the matter. He didn’t like discussing Rey like she wasn’t around when she was unconscious less than a foot away. He claimed she could still hear them—Li-La thought the claim was far-fetched. However, Milo believed him.

Milo had a tendency to believe Ben on all matters regarding his connection with Rey.

Overall, Rey seemed fine. Just exhausted, confused, and hungry.

Not until they touched ground did Li-La began to notice the subtle difference in the girl.

Once bright and giggly, Rey remained further closed off.

Isolation and distance became her usual mode of action. Hiding away with Ben in the ship, choosing to linger next to him, more so than she did in the past. Whenever she was left alone with Li-La or Miles, she’d search for a way to leave, to take care of another task to separate herself.

Like she didn’t want to around them.

Part of the group, yet always a step away. Hesitant, on edge, and a bit lost.

When Li-La brought it up to Ben, he clammed up. “There is a lot you don’t know about her.” And that was where he left it.

Despite her odd reclusiveness, Rey did her part in the camp. She taught the group the flora and fauna of the land, location the safe plants to eat. When she wasn’t helping with food, she tinkered away on the ship, aiding Ben in the ship’s maintenance.

The _NovaLora _wasn’t a ship built for battle. Two standard, low-grade, blasters installed for protection, but otherwise nothing to aid them in crisis. Not to mention the ship happened to be a relic, an artifact from the Old Republic’s time. A simple lodging and travel ship made in mind for a small group, possibly a small family. Not group of teenagers and one somewhat functioning ‘adult’—if Ben could be called such a thing—hoping to survive out in the galaxy on the run, on their own.

Upgrades were necessary if they wanted to survive. So Rey and Ben worked together to get the ship to optimal usage. A daunting task, but one Rey and Ben would complete to the best of their ability.

Which led to staying longer than the ‘two weeks’ Ben claimed.

Before anyone knew it, they been in their temporary camp for two months and counting…

And no one seemed to mind.

* * *

Milo wanted to get off the damn moon.

The Force was relatively weak on the forest like sphere, he spending more time than ever meditating to keep his connection to Force strong and sure. A connection to the Force was like a muscle for some users—if not harnessed, meditated on, and practiced, a user could lose all touch. Lose the will of the Living Force coursing through their veins, lose the calling.

Lose their way.

And while Milo had his misgivings about Master Skywalker, the lessons on the connection to the Living Force were held close and ingrained in his mind.

He could not let himself forget his gift and calling, even if the circumstances had led them wayward.

Luckily, Rey and Ben were the same, he catching them more than once mediating together. Relying on each other. Their bond allowing the Force to flow in an infinite river of light and dark rapids.

Moments like those, Milo became envious of the two.

And then he’d hear their muffled, troubled sobs and hushed comforting words at night and all envy would melt away.

Their bond was not easy.

A blessing and a curse.

One Milo realized early on would be used as a weapon in the wrong hands.

_ “You need to keep an eye on them,” Master Skywalker requested, mere weeks before the academy’s fall. “No matter what happens, you need to stick with them.” _

_ “Why, Master?” _

_ “Because…there is a great shift in the Force brewing…I can feel it.” His blue eyes locked on Milo, he rooted in place. “I know you can feel it too.” _

_ Milo nodded once, too afraid to voice his exact fears and feelings. He’d felt numerous shifts and altercations in the Force—he could feel the off-center tilt. A deep dive into the darkness. Then a tipping into the bright, light. Cool and warm, darkness and light, high and low. An up and down, never reaching true balance. _

_ A terrifying shift to feel on the daily, but one Milo locked away. _

_ Easier to act as though all was fine than confess. _

_ “They must be protected at all costs…even if it means separation.” _

Even now, with his friends in arms reach, Milo knew Skywalkers suggestion of separation would be futile and hurt the two bonded.

They were too intertwined in the Force—a separation of any kind would be painful.

Not only to them.

But to the Living Force.

A Living Force their _other friend_ did not seem to understand contrary to all her studying.

“Milo, come on—I need help bringing the logs for the fire,” Li-La called out. He heard her boots march across the dead leaves to where he mediated, back turned from the camp and towards the highest point of the low mountains on the moon. She grabbed his wrist, attempting to pull him up. “We don’t need to meditate anymore, we’re not at the academy.”

Milo kept his eyes screwed shut. “Just because we are not at the academy doesn’t mean we don’t meditate. We must remember to be one with the Force.”

She huffed, Milo feeling her glare down at him.

“Well I think the Force would be understanding that we need to grab more firewood before nightfall—”

“I’m not getting up,” Milo gritted out. “You can either join me, or leave.”

“I’m not going to meditate,” Li-La announced. “I don’t…do _that_ anymore.”

Milo quirked an eyebrow, eyes still closed. With some subtle probing, he reached out to her in the Force…

And felt a dull wall.

Li-La was never great with the Force. Mediation bored her, she could never call objects, nor did she _feel_ anything. Milo knew this and never pushed her, never asked her to try harder because she was already trying her best.

But she had one of the most unique signatures Milo had ever witnessed.

Almost like a blossom, mid-bloom.

In constant mid-bloom. Pink and light, reaching up for something more. But never truly getting there.

A beautiful sight, in a tragic light.

Yet when he probed, the signature and it’s light felt dull. Closed off.

“Why did you cut yourself off from the Force?”

Li-La recoiled, stepping away from him. “I didn’t.”

His eyes flew open, matching her panicked stare. “Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t—”

“Maybe it was unintentional, but you did!” Milo stood up, dusting off the dirt on his pants and tunic. “Li-La you can’t do stuff like that! There are repercussions!”

“Stop yelling at me!” She turned on her heel and marched out, deeper into the forest. “I’m no longer at the academy! I can do whatever I want with the Force!”

“It doesn’t work that way!” Milo followed her, knowing she didn’t like to wander on her own into the forest. “The Force is always there and it’s connected to you—”

“Well maybe I don’t want the Force,” she whirled around, facing him head on. “Maybe I don’t want this—and maybe we shouldn’t have it! No one should have it!”

Milo blinked at her, stunned by the flip of the switch of her demeanor. Calm and patient Li-La was gone, replaced by a tired and frantic girl who wanted to run away. “Don’t say that—"

“Did you not see what I _did_?” Her voice was quiet, just above a whisper. Her brown eyes burned in his green, begging for understanding. “Back at the academy? _I brought the building down_. I _killed_ someone.”

“Before she could kill us—it’s called self-defense.”

“It didn’t—doesn’t—feel like it.” Li-La’s shoulders slumped, her arms hugging herself. “Don’t you get it…we’re monsters in this.”

“Li-La,” Milo sighed, “we’re not monsters.”

“Yes, we are,” she glanced around, as though expecting either Rey or Ben to pop up out of nowhere. But they weren’t nearby—or at least Milo could not sense them. “I killed, you killed, Ben killed, Rey killed—we took lives. People aren’t supposed to have that power.”

“It was all in defense,” he reminded her, resting his hands firmly on her shoulders. “You…you are the furthest thing from a monster. We all are. But you…” he swallowed tightly, hoping he could say the right words, “You are a blossom. Far too gentle to harm or bring harm.”

Her big brown eyes blinked up at him, stunned.

“Oh,” she breathed, “no one’s ever called me a ‘blossom’ before.”

Milo cleared his throat, feeling heat rise up his neck. “Well you are—”

His next words were cut off, Li-La bringing him into a kiss.

Quick, firm, and to the point. His brain could barely compute what was happening. Then the kiss was done before it started, she stepping away with her arms planted firmly by her sides.

Li-La stared at him, wide eye, stunned by her own actions. “Um—”

“Okay, uh,” Milo swallowed, unable to look away from her. “That was uh, nice. I bit un—”

His words were once again cut off, Li-La jumping in for another kiss.

And this time Milo found he could not pull away.

* * *

Rey was indifferent to their temporary home on the moon, Brullo. 

On the meger moon, the Force was bleak and daylight hours were odd, more night hours than day. Editable plants were far and few in-between, tall brownish trees and moss coating the surface of the moon.

Overall, a rather bummer of a planet if there ever was one. Low population made the moon feel empty, just small pulses from the distance she blocked out. Nothing like the academy were she had to make several walls in her mind to prevent nosey students from peaking in without permission.

The closest village was a half days’ travel away, Ben usually dragging her along with him to collect supplies, hear the gossip, and purchase food from the market.

So far no one had caught wind of what happened to the legendary Luke Skywalker’s academy.

A good thing.

But also concerning.

Two months had already flown by and word had not reached the outer rim, but it made both Rey and Ben wonder if the news had even reached the Core Worlds. The Senate. _Anyone_.

Were they the only four who knew of what happened? If so...who knew how long it would take the news to travel.

Ben was anxious. She could feel it thrumming in the bond. They needed to leave the moon soon, make camp elsewhere. 

"It's not safe to stay in one place for long," Ben stated plainly as they hiked through the forest. They'd been making their way back from the village. A box of new bolts, a few ration packs, and a bar of soap part of their load, needing to replenish the used necessities and add the last bit of upgrades to the ship. "My dad always said 'if you're on the run, keep moving'."

Her lips quirked at the comment, able to picture Han warning a young Ben about the dangers of being on the run.

"What's so funny?" Ben asked, nudging her side. 

"Nothing, just the fact Han would warn you about being on the run."

"I think it was his way of giving fatherly advice." Ben grumbled. "Never thought I'd have to use it."

Rey winced, searching for a way to change the subject. While Ben was happy to be with her and Jyn and Cassian for part of his childhood, he held a certain animosity towards his parents. 

For letting him go so easily. For pushing him to leave the only place he called home. For making him try to be something he wasn't.

As they reached the wide creak between the lazy, mossy hills and the thick of the forest, Ben grasped her hand in his. An extra measure for protection--they were always stronger together. Gently he led her down to the timber bridge, it creaking under their careful tread. 

"Then why don't we just leave?" Rey made sure to match Ben's steps on the timber, he knowing the strongest and weakest points of the makeshift bridge. Water rushed under them at a frantic speed, the only nature alive on the damn moon.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing is keeping us here," she reminded him, "and you said it's better to keep moving."

"You are correct."

His hand slackened as he leapt over the end of the timber. A gaping hole sat at the end of the bridge, weathered from time and rising waters. Large enough for both her and Ben to fall into with one misstep. 

Usually he'd carry her on his back, just like when she was younger. But he was pushing her to be stronger, to be braver, to not be afraid of herself.

To not be afraid of what she was capable of.

With awaiting arms, Ben stood at the end, her safety net.

She leapt, following his movement.

And nearly missed--

Except his hand caught her arm. 

Easily he pulled her up next to him, clutching her tighter than before. 

"Almost. You almost had it." Ben squeezed her shoulder, then let her go completely. "Before you know it, you'll be walking through the sky."

Rey snorted at the thought. 

That was impossible. Even for a Force senaitive like herself.

"We'll leave tomorrow," Ben declared as they continues to down the path, side by side. "I'm kriffing tired of this moon too."

"And where will we go?" She hoped somewhere warmer, brighter, greener. A place that was more...alive.

Ben's eyes lit up, sensing her thoughts. "I think I know just the place."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LI-LA AND MILO SITTING IN A TREE K-I-S-S-I-N-G!!!
> 
> And if this chapter felt slow--that was the point! The moon may or may not be sucking their energy away. I'll happily hear your opinons on that!
> 
> Also after next chapter there might be a slight time jump....


	21. A Water Runs Dry; A Sunrise Fades; A Sunflower Cries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a long chapter for this fic, but ALOT of necessary things happen...
> 
> Also we are primarily in Ben's POV--A FIRST. We'll actually get more Rey and Ben POV chapters in the future as the story starts leading us down windier roads.
> 
> Typos will be fixed later. 
> 
> ENJOY!

* * *

Friction occurs in the group.

“I like it here!”

“Well, it’s not about what you like,” Ben shot back, standing tall before the three. “We have to protect ourselves, Li-La. And that means moving.”

“If we need to move, why didn’t we move before?” Li-La looked over to Rey and Milo, the two remaining silent during the entirety of her and Ben’s debacle. “Why is it now?”

Hands rested on his hips, Ben peered down at her, knowing the hurt she felt at leaving. They finally got comfortable—a routine. But he knew it could only last for so long. “Because we needed to regroup. Find some normal and recoup. Remember, we were all injured and worse for wear. Traveling wasn’t an option at the time.”

“Then how about a vote?” she shot back, arms crossed over her chest. “Make this a democracy.”

Biting his lips together, Ben inhaled deeply through his nose. Tension built on his shoulders, one block at a time, brough down by the weight.

“We can’t do a vote.” Eyes landed on Milo, who remained on the opposite side of the burning fire. “There’s four of us. Knowing us, we’d tie more often than not.”

“But Ben can’t make all our decisions,” Li-La countered.

Rey shot up from her spot. “But you were begging him to make all the decisions in the beginning!”

“Rey, sit back down,” Ben ordered lightly over his shoulder. Always patient with her; it did not go unnoticed by the other two.

However, she didn’t listen, charging forward until she was toe to toe with Li-La. “You can’t say you don’t want a leader just because—”

“Rey, sit back down!” Ben grabbed her forearm and moved her behind him before she could say anything else. “I’ll handle this, okay?”

Huffing, the fourteen year old sat back down in her spot, glaring at where she once stood.

Ben faced Li-La once more, stoic but crumbling around the edges. He could never keep a mask on cleanly. “We don’t vote—we _discuss_. Like adults.” His eyes swept over them. “Because that’s what we are—Milo, Li-La—you can’t act like we are some kids at the academy because we’re not!”

“But we can’t act like we are some criminals!” Li-La remained unmoving, unafraid to speak her mind. “We deserve to live a normal life. Not be constantly moving!”

“And you got that,” Ben nodded, gesturing to their camp, “but time for that is over. Because we are criminals, or at the very least our hands our dirty so get this fantasy of us being this happy little family out of your head—because we need to survive, not…” he shook his head, looking around their homely camp, “not do _this_.”

“I want to go home!” Li-La sniffled, blinking furiously, holding back tears. “And I don’t even know where that is anymore.”

“That’s not my problem. You can leave whenever you want Li-La, just know wherever you do go, they might not welcome you back with open arms.” Ben’s eyes roved to Rey and Milo, a vague warning. “We leave at dawn. Let’s start packing everything up while we still have the fire going.”

* * *

“You shouldn’t have said that.”

Ben looked up from where he was packing up their small library, using an oil lamp for light. Rey stood at the opening of the tent, edging her way in. She stood tall before, her way of acting older than her fourteen years, yet his old sweater hung on her limply, reminding him she was still just a child.

A child trying to be an adult.

He hated himself for that.

Grunting in acknowledgement, turned back to his task. “I shouldn’t have said what?”

“That her not having a home is not your problem.” Rey sat down on the edge of the crate he’d been packing. “We are her home.”

“Rey,” Ben sighed, setting the last of the books in the crate. He crouched down, taking a knee beside her. “I need you to understand something—you and I are…” he searched her face, carefully considering how to go about the matter, “…you and I are each other’s home. We’ll always be each other’s home…but Li-La and Milo—”

“They’re our friends,” she whispered, dropping her voice lower. “We love them.”

“Of course we do,” he assured her. He rested a gentle hand on her shoulder, giving a squeeze. “But they aren’t going to be with us forever and sometimes we need to think about protecting ourselves than… than our friends.”

Her eyes narrowed, a dangerous ire in her gaze. “How can you say that?”

“I say that because I know my priorities and it’s keeping _us_ safe.” He knew it would be difficult for her to understand; it would be difficult for anyone to understand. But he knew if he had to choose between her life or one of their friends, it was a no brainer. “And I’m okay with Li-La and Milo hating me, or not wanting to be my friend anymore if it means we stay out of harms way. I need you to understand that.”

Swallowing back confused tears, Rey nodded. “Okay.”

“This stays between us.”

“Always.”

* * *

Tension weighed heavy in the group, a divide becoming clearer and clearer as the days passed.

Li-La avoided being near Ben, choosing to sit with Rey or Milo.

Milo would side with Li-La in petty arguments within the group.

Rey would remain by Ben’s side, his unspoken partner in crime.

It wasn’t until they made a pit-stop on Neven, an outer-rim planet with partial industrial and tribal life, did something finally click for Ben.

They break off into two pairs, Rey and Ben off to get fuel for the _NovaLora_ and Milo and Li-La left to get necessities from the market. They planned to meet back at the landing where they made camp, hidden from locals but not too far out into the forest where they’d lose their way.

He and Rey had only made it halfway through the forest when Ben realized he didn’t have one of their credit chips on him for the fuel. Reluctantly he and Rey trekked back to their camp only for them to nearly stumble on a private moment—

Li-La and Milo embraced in a kiss.

“Why did—”

Ben’s hand clapped over Rey’s mouth, he dragging her to the ground before either of their friend’s could realize they were nearby.

Naturally Rey tried to kick at him, confusion and instinct flared. That is until his conscious merged with hers at the flip of a switch.

_ Calm the kriff down! _ He projected, arms still wrapped firmly around her. _Follow my lead and keep low._

Releasing her, Ben rolled away. He nodded her over, the two crawling away until they were what he deemed a safe distance.

“Why’d you do that?” Rey hissed, dusting herself off. A twig hung in her hair, Ben removing it as he sat up. “I thought we needed—”

“Milo and Li-La,” Ben waved back into the direction they came, “they were…”

“Were what?” Rey asked, nose scrunched. She cuffed the sleeves of the sweater, dirt and grass smudge stains on her elbows and forearms.

“Kissing,” Ben finished lamely.

Rey’s eyes widened in understanding. “Oh.”

“I didn’t know they…” he opened and closed his mouth, “…they liked each other that way.”

The girl shrugged, not seeing the issue with the matter. “I did.” Huffing, she stood up. “Maybe you’re just not that perceptive, Ben.”

“I’m plenty perceptive,” he shot back, hurrying to follow her.

“Sure,” Rey called over her shoulder, “so perceptive you didn’t notice them always making goo-goo eyes at each other. And so perceptive you didn’t remember to bring the credit chip. How are we going to get fuel now?”

Matching her stride, Ben attempted to grin down at her and shove the revelation of Milo and Li-La to the back of his mind. “I think I have an idea…”

* * *

With a sly Jedi mind trick, Ben and Rey were able to slip past and collect a barrel of fuel, before hurrying off back to their camp.

Ben felt guilty.

Rey, on the other hand, was exhilarated.

“I didn’t know we could do that!”

“It’s only for emergencies,” Ben warned, holding one end of the barrel while Rey held the other. She tried to swing it between them, but the barrel proved to be too weighty for such a frivolous gestures. “You are not allowed to do that—to anyone—unless it is life or death.”

Rey hummed, not entirely in agreement with his logic but knew better than to argue. “Lu—I mean, uh, Skywalker never taught us how to do mind tricks…”

“Of course he didn’t,” Ben muttered, an ounce of annoyance tinged in his voice.

“Will you teach me?” Rey sounded small, as though afraid of the answer. “Pick back up my training, I mean.”

The thought of teaching her the ways of the Jedi caused Ben’s stomach to twist until sour. His mouth pinched into a stubborn frown. “No…I don’t think so.”

Her feet came to a halt. “Why not?”

“I’m not going to teach you how to be a Jedi…but we can still learn about the Force and our bond. I don’t want to stop that, but I’m not sure about everything else,” he confessed. “We need to be careful with how we use the Force…we don’t want to be detected.”

Rey hummed, not quite agreeing but not disagreeing. A new found energy emerged to her step—an improvement from her slow shuffle from before.

He did not have room to ask for more.

* * *

“Just keep it to a minimum,” Ben stressed, keeping his voice low, “she’s only fourteen, She doesn’t need to accidentally walk into anything.”

Li-La scoffed, while Milo appeared mortified. “Of course not!” The younger man cried out. “We’re not idiots.”

Ben’s eyebrows jumped. “I’m not going to comment on that.”

“You can’t stop her from growing up, Ben,” Li-La said, earnest. “I’m not saying Milo and I won’t be careful, but she’s not oblivious and won’t be fourteen forever.”

Anger flared inside Ben, yet he shoved it down before it could fester. “Just try, _please_.”

Vague murmurs were given, but it was enough for the time being.

* * *

Ben’s eyes snapped open.

Shuffling and the creak of the one of the bunks’ steps echoed.

Nudging the Force, he felt both Milo and Li-La’s signatures.

Both were asleep.

But Rey—

A hand shoved his shoulder. “Ben…” He didn’t need to turn over to see it was Rey, the girl shaking him again. “Ben, I can’t fall asleep.”

“Then try again.”

“I have been trying.” Her earnest murmur twisted his chest.

Shifting over, he flopped to his side. He nodded for her to slip in beside him. “Just this once. You need to stop—”

“But I sleep better when I am next to you, and you do too,” she explained, unaffected. She still wore the sweater, the damn thing in need of a good wash, and leggings and wool socks covered head to toe, Rey getting unbelievably cold when they were in space. She laid on her side, facing him, keeping a slither of distance between them.

Back at the academy, when the nightmares were worse, he’d let her sleep by his side until she was calm. Until her breathing was normal. And then he’d slip back into his room and go to bed. But now with their constant traveling, she got into the bad habit of wanting to sleep next to him throughout the night.

When she was younger, it wasn’t a problem.

But he could not help but think to Milo and Li-La…their constant reminders that Rey was not a little girl anymore.

And unfortunately, some boundaries (which was seemingly impossible when she had forever resided in a part of his mind and soul) needed to be set.

Sleeping in their own beds was one of those boundaries.

Especially considering he was no longer just clumsy limbs and she wasn’t a tiny loath cat. He pushed himself far, until his back met the wall. Rey shifted closer, tucking herself under the blanket and wrapping up in a cocoon, leaving Ben with nothing except the clothes on his back to fend from the cool air.

He sighed, but didn’t argue.

They just needed to go to sleep.

Soon enough, he felt her slip into slumber, her soothing breathing lulling him…

_ A finger brushed along his nose. Following the slope down, the curious hands ghosting the curve of his lips. Familiar at the touch; coy yet playful. _

_ His nose twitched. _

_ “Darling…wake up,” the woman’s voice called out to him. “I can’t get up if you are sleeping on me.” _

_ Cracking his eyes open, he found his face pressed to a swelled abdomen. A soft olive green sweater rubbed against his check, covering the woman’s pregnant belly. Ben blinking blearily, too stunned to move. _

_ Sunshine poured from the windows into the bedroom, a gentle warmth. One that reminded him of home—home with Jyn and Cassian and Rey. How the sun would always shine and warm them to their hearts content; never too harsh, never too cruel. Just enough. _

_ “I understand you want to chat with the baby, but honestly Ben, you fall asleep every time.” _

_ Sitting up, a heavy breath escaped him. Low and exhausted—but full. Full of…happiness. _

_ A happiness he’d never known. _

_ “I’m sorry I…” His words died in the back of his throat once his eyes landed on _ her_._

_ Older, hazel eyes full of mirth, and hair cropped short around her chin…it was Rey. _

_ “You look a little put out,” she muttered, burrowing deeper into the bed, “bad dream?” _

_ Words fail as his mind attempts to merge the image of the Rey before him and _ his_ Rey. His stubborn, too compassionate and too wild best friend. _

_ Because this Rey is calm and serene, does not look bothered by the world in the slightest. _

_ Then again it was just them and whenever it was just them, the world felt right. _

_ Her left hand reached his, a simple band on her ring finger— _

His eyes flew open, bombarded by the sight of Rey beside him.

Drooling, arms sprawled out and the rest of her body pulled into a ball. Long shoulder length hair spilling from her lopsided buns. He could smell her breath, reeking of lentil soup they had for dinner, she clearly forgetting to brush her teeth. Sun freckles smeared across her nose and her skins was dried from the constant change of the weather from planet to planet.

She was…a mess. A childish mess.

Yet all he could see was what she could—_would_— be.

One day.

Ben climbed out of the bunk, being careful not to wake her.

With light feet he left the sleeping quarters and made way to the cockpit, sitting down in the pilot’s seat.

Stars stared back at him, flickering in and out as the _NovaLora_ traveled slowly through space. Taking it’s sweet time to get to their next destination. There was no hurry when there was no one waiting for them on the other side.

Closing his eyes, Ben allowed himself to reach…

Reach beyond the _NovaLora_…beyond the outer rim and core worlds…to feel if anyone was looking for them.

Anyone at all…

…for a moment he felt something—_a tug, a pull, a brush of a hand—almost accidental_—and then it was gone…

Silence greeted him like an old friend.

Humiliated tears begged for their release, Ben caving into their hold.

* * *

“He’s _alive_,” Leia breathed, her unshed tears spring from her eyes, “she is too. They both are.”

A shaky exhale shuddered through Cassian, he collapsing on to an open chair. Han remained rooted by Leia, a steady hand on the back of her chair. An unnecessary and unspoken protected, but appreciated nonetheless.

The night life of Chandrila burned through the dark apartment, casting shadows across the three. Life still went on despite their worlds slowly tipping into detriment.

Leia removed a handkerchief from her robe, dabbing under eyes. Han and Cassian arrived moments earlier, convincing the woman to attempt to reach out to Rey and Ben through the Force.

To feel if they were alive.

She’d been overwhelmed by the news of the Jedi Academy’s fall, but she put on a brave face. Like always, placed the image of the General and Princess before the heart of a mother and sister.

And she tried, felt and meditated, until she saw that bright blip.

Her baby boy.

Tethered to a dimmer blip—_Rey_.

Both alive and thinly hidden under shields.

“Do you know where they’re at?” Han asked, a light pressure to his words.

“It doesn’t work like that,” she muttered, tucking her handkerchief away and back into her pocket. “But they’re alive. Presumably _okay_ since there wasn’t any dire distress.”

“So what…?” Cassian sat up, tears running freely down his face, he not making a move to wipe them away. Instead, he wore his fear and love and determination proudly, unashamed. “We—we wait for them to come home? To find us—do we find them? _What do we do_?”

“We…” Leia paused thinking over the entire matter as a whole. She knew neither Han nor Cassian would like her answer, but she needed to think what was best for everyone involved; even if it meant making sacrifices and tough choices. “We…_don’t_ reach out to them.”

“Excuse me, Senator—”

“Princess, _really_?”

Leia held her hand up, silencing the two. “No. No, we cannot reach out to them because then they’d be known as the only survivors of the massacre. A little girl and seemingly troubled young man, all fingers will be pointed at them. I am not letting that happen, especially with the Vader matter.”

Her bloodline was well known. Adding this unfortunate circumstance to her son…well she could not let him become enemy number one to the entire galaxy.

Standing up, Leia held her head high, commanding the room. “We will make a statement on behalf of my brother,” her voice cracked. She knew he was alive; she’d feel it in the Force if he wasn’t. Yet the surmountable pain she felt at knowing he experience the loss of the academy and seemingly vanished. Not bothering the contact her. “We’ll say there are no survivors.”

“But what if they are waiting for us to find them?” Cassian countered. “Rey and Ben aren’t going to take that as a good sign—they’ll think we forgot about them!”

“This is our way of protecting them,” Leia shot back, the General in her snapping into place. “Do you not _think_ they may have a hand in what happened? Our children are extremely powerful…” her heart stuttered over the betraying thoughts, though she knew she needed to say it in order for Cassian to see the larger picture, “…do you not think they may have killed those students?”

Cassian’s eyes were fierce as his face fell stoic. “Rey and Ben aren’t killers.”

“You haven’t seen Rey and Ben in years,” Leia matched his gaze levelly, “we don’t know what they are.”

“Yes, we do,” he stood up, grabbing his pack from the floor, “they are children who just want to be wanted, Leia. You’d _know_ that if you spent time with your son.” She refrained a recoil from the sharp truth. Cassian had a way to speak the truth and nothing but the truth, no matter how painful it may be. An admirable quality when it wasn’t directed at her. “This is us saying we don’t want them—it’s the worst thing we can do! We’re asking them _to not exist_ by refusing to look for them!”

“Captain, I think it’s best you don’t tell me how to handle my family affairs.”

“Well with all due respect General, I was involved in your family affairs the moment you allowed Ben to walk into my life.” His eyes darted between Han and Leia, regret and defiance mingling in his eyes. “Jyn and I _raised_ that boy. We gave him a home, we taught him to not be afraid of himself and…I can’t let you push him away again. We allowed it once, with the academy, but not anymore.”

“And where is Jyn?”

Cassian’s eyes dropped. Solemn and small.

A pang echoed in Leia’s chest at the implications.

She never thought…well she never thought she’d loose her best out in the field. And Jyn was her best.

When there was no response, Leia nodded her head sagely. “I see.”

“She wouldn’t want this,” Cassian stated simply, a half shrug in his shoulders. “She’d want you to find him—send a team, make it a mission. Do something.”

“And I am doing something; it’s just something you don’t like.”

His face hardened.

Reaching into his pocket, he removed a data chip. He tossed on the coffee table.

“I got the information you asked. First Order is alive and well, growing by the second.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

“And I quit,” he declared. No malice, no hurt, no pain. Just a statement. “Don’t ask me to come back unless it is for Ben or Rey.”

“We wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for the girl,” Leia countered sharply, determined to get the last word in.

“Your son wouldn’t be the good man he is today if it wasn’t for that girl.”

Cassian left the apartment, nothing besides the data chip speaking of his presence.

After a moment, Han sighed. “Princess…”

“Not now.” Leia brushed passed him, a flash of hurt in her husband’s eyes. “I just…I need to be alone right now.”

She made way to her room, closing the door shut behind her and turned the lock.

With short, purposeful strides she sat down at her vanity. Facing herself, what she allowed herself to become—allowing herself to become what she needed to be.

A tear slipped free.

She let them drop one after the other, until she felt _more_.

More of what? She hoped by the time the tears stopped she’d know.

* * *

“Can we get—”

“No.”

“But I like jogan fruit,” Rey groaned, following Ben through the market. Li-La and Milo were not too far behind, only a few feet away. Giggling and starry eyes over each other. It made both Rey and Ben want to gag, though neither did, letting the couple be together in peace. Well, as much peace as they could when sharing space with Rey and Ben.

“I like jogan fruit too, but you don’t see me running towards it at every market.” His mutter was met with a scowl and sad eyes. God, he hated it when she made ‘sad eyes;’ her pitiful gaze was like a knife in the gut. “Maybe if your nice and don’t cause me too much of a headache, I’ll let you get some,” he relented. “We just needed to make sure we get what we need first, okay?”

“Okay.” She beamed up at him, the two stepping up in line to purchase vegetables. They’d been able to get by with what they saved up from their initial camp, but they were beginning to run low on their stock of beets and potatoes. Ben knew the market, he and his father stopping once upon a time.

_ “Messis is the best planet for food, got it?” Han told a six year old Ben as they waited in line for jogan fruit—it was the ripest that time of year and people were flocking over from all over the galaxy. It was exciting if not frightening to feel all the energy and life around him. So he held his father’s hand and remained close. Always close, too afraid to let go. “They always have the freshest and cheapest stuff. Plus they don’t take credits. It’s all about exchange and coins—old fashion. You’ll learn to appreciate that.” _

Beside him, Rey held the cloth bag open, Ben dropping a few potatoes when the crackle of the radio behind the counter catches his attention.

“—_Organa makes official statement_—"

Rey’s eyes widen, the task between her and Ben forgotten as they clamored closer to the seller.

“Can you turn that up?” Ben insisted, pointing to the radio.

“Please!” Rey added for good measure, squished between Ben and counter.

The lanky and bearded Messi man grunted at them, but raised the volume nonetheless.

“_A tragedy_—” the radio cuts out a bit, the seller knocking it again to get a clear feed, “—_A fall of hope—” _Leia’s voice comes in, stern and tender, “—_the Jedi of the future gone from us too soon. There were no survivors._ _The casualties include_—” Leia begins to list their peers.

Flashes of their faces and fall dance cruelly before Rey’s eyes. One after the other, life snuffed out of them by…

Ben’s hand rests on her shoulder, squeezing tightly, as a mental block from slots into place in her mind. The memories are once again locked and tucked away.

_ For your own good. _ Ben’s voice echoes in her mind.

She wants to believe him, and part of her does.

But she’s still curious.

“_Milo Agave_, _Rey Andor-Erso_—"

Ben flinches at her name in the list, mentioned among the casualties. To hear hers and Milo’s name in succession when they were very much alive and with him daily.

“—_Li-La Baze_—”

Ben could feel Li-La a few feet away, her attention suddenly locked on them at the mention of her name through the transmittion. Soon she and Milo are with them, listening with heavy hearts.

“—_And my own son, Ben Solo_.”

His gut drops at his name.

In front of him, Rey peeks up, under her eyes damp. “They think we’re dead?”

Ben thought he knew heartbreak. His mother never coming home on time, his father being alright with letting his twelve year old son live with near strangers. Or being shipped off to an academy he never wanted to be part of. Or seeing the one person he cared for more than anything kill without thought…

No, heartbreak was the harmonized pang of loneliness, of abandonment, between he and Rey. His emotions mirroring hers in perfect vision…and not having the power to make the other feel better, but sit with the shared stir of pain.

He swallowed, hugging her closer. “I guess so, kid.”

“But we’re not. We’re right here.”

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So let's recap--
> 
> \- Milo and Li-La are thing! YAY!
> 
> \- Ben had a vision of the future; up to you guys to figure how he feels about that (FYI, he does not view her romantically nor is he sexually attracted to her right now. NOPE. None of that business in this fic.)
> 
> \- The group is struggling to get along the longer they are traveling together
> 
> \- Cassian is done with bullshit
> 
> \- Luke is MIA; no shock there.
> 
> \- Leia knows Rey and Ben are alive, but decides to broadcast to the world they are dead, to 'protect' them.
> 
> \- And if you recall chapters previous--JYN IS ALIVE. Just going rogue (no pun intended) and undercover. Her hubby is covering for her with the story she is dead.
> 
> AND NEXT CHAPTER HAS A TIME JUMP. WHHHHAAAT.
> 
> Let's see where that takes us.
> 
> Let me know what you think! Comments and kudos are always appreciated; love discussing the fic with readers :D


	22. Sunflower in Dry, Untouched Land

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TIME JUMPPPPP HERE WE GO! :D
> 
> Typos will be fixed later :D
> 
> Mind the recently added tag...
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

**_Three Years Later…_ **

** **

The small D-2 droid clanked on her work table.

Behind her goggles, Rey stared up at her friend in deep annoyance. She’d been working on an old blaster—per Ben’s request—Milo nearly destroying three day’s work with his haphazard toss.

“You can fix it right?” Milo peered down at her, his words muffled by his mouth mask. He tugged it down to his neck, the lower half of his face visible. A five o’clock shadow peppered his face, he scratching at it absentmindedly. “The trader said it’d be tricky to fix, but I told him he didn’t know our tinker gal.”

She nudged the power downed droid, the cone head lulling to side. “I guess…I’d need to do a diagnostic, but I suppose—does Ben know you traded for this?”

Milo pursed his lips, giving a half shrug. “Ben doesn’t need to know…?”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “We don’t need a droid. Ben hates droids—”

“But we need more help around here,” he motioned to their little shack. A small homestead and workshop on the Westside of Takadona; they received moderate business, but it was all a front.

A front for the smuggling and the occasional bounty hunting.

Maz let the matter sly, turning the other way to all the dealings and illegal actions taking place within and in the vicinity of her Castle walls. She’d always turn the other cheek when it came to the Solos, Ben the apple of her eye the moment they landed and sought refuge.

_“Too much like his father this one,” Maz quipped conspiratorially to Rey after she hugged Ben. “I’d keep an eye out on him.”_

Milo leaned against the worktable, an air of nonchalance. “Plus Ben is still off world.”

“I’m aware,” Rey deadpanned. I’d be impossible for her to not be aware Ben was on or off world—the bond was alive and well between them. Possibly the only function and connection to Force she maintained the years after the academy’s fall. “Still doesn’t mean we should—”

Milo sighed. “I knew you’d say no—”

“I’m not saying no,” Rey huffed, lifting her goggles off her eyes. “I’m just saying it is not the wisest idea.”

Milo’s eyebrows rose, challenging her.

“Fine,” she hissed. “I’ll work on it in my spare time—now, _leave me the kriff alone_.”

Her goggles snapped back on and she returned to her blaster.

An Imperial Age blaster Ben swiped a few missions back and while usually they’d tear apart such a weapon and use it to fix their own blasters, he asked her to return it to it’s former glory. She didn’t argue, herself up to the task and willing to research.

It was Ben’s way of teaching—by doing, by forcing her to actively find answers rather than having her parrot off facts her taught her. And while he’d claim he _wasn’t_ teaching, she knew better.

Hearing the workshop door shut after Milo, she tugged lightly on the bond. Ben didn’t like to be bothered when he was on a mission, grumbling about comms and tracking and whatnot, but he didn’t mind her reaching out through the bond.

_When are you coming back?_

_…Soon._

* * *

Ben stumbled upon smuggling by accident.

(Only the son of Han Solo would stumble upon smuggling by accident.)

He’d been taking a break from the bar, Maz putting him to work since he and his group were staying without charge—an understandable exchange—when he was mistaken for a contact. He’d been given a name, a price, and a location to pick up the crates.

Crates full of currency crystals for some no-named Senator on the other side of the galaxy.

Foolishly, or brilliantly depending on when one asked him, Ben took the job. Be damned he was mistaken for someone else, he’d just wear a mask, hide his face from the world.

And that’s what he did—came up with a name. A stupid one, _Kylo_—a strange mash between Skywalker and Solo. A name Rey suggested on a whim, as joke really, but one Ben latched on to with ease. He used the last name Ren, catching wind of the Knights of Ren through the bar. A fearsome group who may or may not be partially undead. Ben did not know what to make of the rumors, but to adopt the name for his persona. He knew the power of name, and ‘Ren’ would come with power.

His first smuggle was successful, tips and tricks from his father popping from the woodwork of his mind. Not mention his Force sensitivity more than a little helped. His second smuggle was just as well-done, and the third, and the forth—

To the point he gained a small reputation.

Work came easily enough, but he knew he couldn’t do it alone. Kriff, his father never did it alone, Chewie right by his side through it all.

Naturally, Rey volunteered herself.

Without a second thought, she was met with a sharp ‘No.’

And while Milo would be an ideal partner—able to read people in one glance and adequate in combat—Ben new he couldn’t take him off world for numerous days at a time. Because taking Milo meant leaving Rey with Li-La and…

To be point blank, Ben did not trust Li-La.

Or rather, he did not trust Li-La with Rey or relatively alone.

Ever since his forced claim as leader years previous, he and the young woman had not been on the best terms. Perhaps would never be what they once were. Friends with gentle understanding. Hostility underlined the majority of their exchanges, Li-La purposely presenting herself as a devil’s advocate instead of her true colors—making Ben look like an idiot.

With his options low and an unwillingness to bring another person into their fold, Ben weighed his pros and cons…

“I’ll have you know this is heinous!” The platinum blonde haired man growled, shaking against the cuffs. He was, unfortunately, the smuggled item. A Senator’s son who was off gallivanting in Canto Bight with his father’s credits. A simple capture and smuggle with a hefty payment to keep the matter hush-hush. Only downfall was the travel time—a good few standard days to go and come back.

Behind the squabbling man, Li-La rolled her eyes and shoved him forward on to the ship. Masked in a refurbished and altered Rebel pilot helmet, with only her stern eyes visible, she was unrecognizable. Just terrifying eyes to scold even the fiercest of scum.

Under his own mask, Ben sighed and shut the ramp closed.

The amount of jobs he took that were just transporting one bratty Senator-Ambassador-Politician’s kid from one place to another was absurd. Almost like the Force was flashing a large ‘what if’ in front of him, each and every time.

“Don’t you feel the least bit remorseful?” Their captive cried out as Li-La strapped him down into the utility closet’s jump seat. Not originally there, but an addition made by Milo and Rey when the cargo started become more alive and breathing than crates of inanimate objects. “I am Senator Angelo’s son! He is the highest regarded—”

“With bantha shit policies,” Ben muttered, his voice dark and deadpan through the voice modulator. “Ask anyone outside of the top-tier New Republic Senator’s what they think about taxation on—”

Li-La cleared her throat.

Right.

He was a smuggler.

Not a highly educated Senator’s son, trained in the Force, who grew up with ‘political radicals’—as the New Republic liked to deem them after confirming their deaths—like Jyn and Cassian.

He was _just_ a smuggler. And sometimes, he had to act like it even though he knew he was so much more. At least, that was what Rey would tell him at random, hearing his thoughts from across the galaxy or from the other side of the room, ready to jump in and be there for him. Usually there for him when he didn’t ask or want her around.

Their captive had not been listening to him, grumbling up the whazoo about how his father would never hear of such manhandling.

Ben snorted at the remark. Little did the shit know.

Annoyed with him, Li-La slapped a muffler on the Senator’s son, effectively silencing him.

Thank maker, Ben wasn’t too sure if he could handle the comments and quips for the entire trip to the rendezvous point. Li-La bypassed himself and captive, taking her spot at the co-pilot’s seat.

Waiting until she was out of an ear shot, Ben waved his hand in front of the man. Like a snap, he was out like a light. With another flick of the wrist, the door wheezed and snapped shut, the lock clicking into place.

Once strapped into his seat, Ben flew off planet and jumped into hyperspace. A few minutes passed before he reached under the chin of his mask and clicked the clasp. A soft gasp came from the release, he yanking the damn thing off to breathe in peace.

“You shouldn’t take off your mask when we are on a job,” Li-La droned, her helmet remaining firmly in place. “We wear these for our prote—”

“Protection,” Ben finished, leaning back in his seat. Stars speeded by in the corner of his eye, a flash of blue and white. They could make it to rendezvous in half a day’s time if they keep on the same route without any stops. “But we are fine. And I hate wearing that thing—it’s suffocating.”

“You’re an idiot,” she sighed, though didn’t argue with him on the matter anymore than the initial warning.

Silence stretched between the two, a calm return unusual for the pair. On an average job they’d be on a rush to make the meeting time and deadline or perhaps running into trouble with others who crossed their paths. Smuggling and bounty hunting was back in full circuit despite the ever present New Republic. Organized crime was becoming more and more common as the New Republic struggled to keep their grip on the galaxy in a ‘diplomatic’ manner and other radical groups—like the First Order— were going on the up rise.

It was chaos.

But chaos allowed them to work and disappear in crowds. Ben found he couldn’t complain despite the inherent concern he had for the state of the galaxy. But he wasn’t his mother, father, or uncle. He wasn’t sticking his nose where it shouldn’t be, and sticking with making his people—Milo, Li-La, and Rey—safe and comfortable.

He was fine with that despite the Skywalker blood in him thrumming to say otherwise.

A clacking clasp was heard beside him, Li-La pulling off her helmet, contrary to her own protests on keeping it on. She carefully brushed down her helmet hair, the dark sleek locks falling back into place easily.

“I think…I want to stop smuggling.”

“Well you can’t,” Ben said without a moment of thought. “We have at least three more jobs lined up—”

“Let me rephrase—I _need_ to stop smuggling.”

Ben’s gaze snapped to her, eyeing her sternly. Li-La remained facing forward, hugging her helmet close to her abdomen. She didn’t crack under his pressure, all too use to his tactics.

“_Why_?” he pressed.

She swallowed, looking out to the window only to look away. Hyperspace seemed to pass by faster. Yet she stayed quiet.

When no further explanation came, Ben lightly probed in the Force. Not something he liked to do with Milo and Li-La, respecting their privacy for the most part, but Li-La was clamming up and her signature had always been difficult to read all together.

He searched, feeling nothing.

He dug a little more, latching on to the faint shadow of Li-La’s signature…

And then he found it.

“_Oh_.” He blinked. Eyes widening, he could look away from her. As though seeing her for the first time, and maybe in a way he was…because she was different than the girl he met at the academy. She was now grown woman with her own priorities. Ones he’d maybe have to be lenient on for once. “Does…does Milo know?”

“No.”

“But how—”

“The baby is not Force sensitive,” she said briskly, a hint of relief in her voice. “He can’t sense the baby if he isn’t intentionally looking. And I want to keep it that way until I am ready.”

“I see…” Ben chewed on the inside of his cheek, his mind still reeling. “So…I guess that means you’re not smuggling anymore.”

“Yes,” Li-La sat back in her seat, an edge off of her once the news was out in the open, “no more smuggling.”

“Are you going to leave us?” Ben asked. He couldn’t put his fist down and refuse in this situation. Because they weren’t kids anymore, nor were they young adults attempting to be mature in a cruel world. They were adults, fill fledged adults—except for Rey—and Ben couldn’t force Li-La and Milo to stay when…when they were building something of their own. Something just theirs.

“No,” she said, eyes downcast, “at least not right now. Maybe once Milo and I talk…” Her eyes landed on him, almost pleading. “Ben…you knew it was going to happen eventually. We’ve all outgrown what we’ve made together. Milo and I can’t be living down the hall anymore; he and I need to be making our own space. Especially once the baby comes…and—and Rey’s not a kid anymore. I think maybe it would be best if…if we all start to part ways.”

Ben nodded once, not trusting his voice.

Li-La’s stern brow soften, for a moment the soft spoken girl in the garden with Rey.

“That doesn’t mean we aren’t family or we stop talking to each other, it just means we need to make different choices for ourselves and not as a group.”

“I understand,” Ben breathed. His hands flew to the control board, fiddling with nobs and levers, knowing what did little to nothing and could calm the storm brewing within him. “It was bound to happen eventually.”

And Ben believed it would. He just didn’t expect it to be so soon, nor to knock the wind out of him. It was strange to think Li-La and Milo as a unit away from he and Rey. Kriff, it was strange to think he was a good three years older and somehow the two were miles ahead of him in the race called life.

At least in the end he’d have Rey.

His sunflower in the dry, untouched land.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AGH. SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED.
> 
> First of all, Jyn and Cassian ARE ALIVE. The New Republic only declared them dead for....REASONS. But remember Leia actually does believe Jyn is dead.
> 
> But Li-La and Milo are expecting, and things are changing. AND MAZ. WE ARE GOING TO SEE MAZ NEXT CHAPTER :D
> 
> Like you guys don't know how happy I am we finally got to the time jump, never thought it would happen, lol.
> 
> Real quick age recap-- Ben is 26, Rey is 16 (Both are about to celebrate their Name Day in the next chapter), Li-La is 23, and Milo is 24.
> 
> OUR BABIES ARENT BABIES ANYMORE *SOB*


	23. Changing Tides

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI!
> 
> Another chapter.
> 
> Typos will be fixed later.
> 
> Enjoy :D

* * *

They made it back to Takodana in record time, thankfully so.

If Ben were any later, Rey would have figured out a way to find him and bring him home herself. But the ship entered atmosphere sooner than anticipated.

An all encompassing wholeness filled Rey’s chest as Ben’s proximity, the bond fluttering at alert.

All her work was forgotten, tools clanking on the work bench and tumbling down to the floor in her haste. The D-2 droid would have to wait when she had more time on her hands.

Feet pounding on the muddied ground, Rey dashed out of the workshop and deep into the Takodana forest. Foliage and branches swatted at her, she forgoing the worn path and down the way the tug of the bond led her.

Sun setting for the day, she dashed ahead, hoping to reach him before the daylight vanished.

Crunching twigs and the tell-tale of smattering mud filled her ears—

Until a similar urgency was heard from a couple yards distance away…

Rey stilled.

The footsteps stilled.

The forest was too thick to see anyone, the branches overlapping and threading together like a haphazard quilt. Perfect for hiding and playing mind tricks—or better yet get lost. Maker knows she lost sight of Ben one too many times in this forest, needing to search for him through the Force to fall right back on their designated path.

Deftly, she reached out into the Force, hoping to catch the Force signature—

Only to be thrown out, hitting a mental blockade.

Her lips twitched, begging for a smirk—she knew one person skilled enough to push against her. To force her out and cloak themselves.

“I know you are out there,” she called out, “and think it is rather silly that we are doing this.”

A rustled came from behind her.

Rey whipped around—

And nothing.

She frowned.

Another rustle, this time from the left.

She tensed, though willed herself to breathe. To calm down.

He was just testing her, like always.

She kept a hand on her blaster, the damn thing not great with a few fried wires, but it got the job done. “This isn’t funny, Ben. You are being an arsehole.”

The branches in front of her shook, Rey taking a tentative steps forward. Ready to lunge at Ben, tackle him to the ground and kiss him—

_ No _.

Hit him.

Yeah.

Hit him.

With a stunner.

Nothing else. Dear maker, nothing else.

Pushing away _those_ thoughts, she lifted her blaster, flicking on the stunner with her thumb.

“Stop it, Ben. I mean it—_Ack_!”

A full force hit her on the back, Rey stumbling forward. With the force she caught herself before faceplanting into the ground. Instincts kicking in, she elbowed the intruder, smacking him in the nose with one cracking crunch.

“Shit, Rey!” Ben hissed, holding his nose with one hand. “_Fuck_,” he mumbled, wiping away some blood. He winced, but didn’t seemed too bothered. He had experienced worse, flashes of previous injuries flicking in both their minds. “That fucking hurt.”

She whirled around, her blaster still pointed at him.

Her blastered clattered to the ground, released without her own volition.

Her stomach lurched, a sting traveling through the bond. A sting of scolding—not from Ben, but from the Force. Screeching at her for hurting him. _That was not what the bond was for._

Then again, neither knew what the bond really was for; it wasn’t as though there was an instruction manual. If there was ‘injuring each other’ was probably at the top of the list of ‘what not to do with a Force Bond.’

“Oh—wow. I didn’t think I hit you that hard.” Stepping into his space, her hands began to flutter about, searching for something—anything—to do to help.

Ben batted her hands away. He produced a rag to his back pocket and pressed it under his nose, catching the dripping rainfall of blood. “It’s fine—calm down. Nothing too bad, don’t think it’s broken.” He waved her off again as her hands reached for the rag.

“Alright—but it serves you well, thinking you can play some mind games on me,” she warned, a teasing grin on her lips.

His eyes softened, locked on her with a hint of admiration. Of what, she wasn’t sure. Rey didn’t like to think too long or hard about Ben’s looks and eyes—it caused her heart to ache in a pathetic way and her own hands to wander at night.

“I knew you knew it was me. You were in no danger, Rey.”

“But I could have been!”

“And if you were, you would have given the bastard a bloody nose, so there is that,” he praised with a half shrug. Cautiously, he removed the rag. The bleeding had stopped, leaving a few patches of dried dark red blood under his nose. He barely inspected the rag, shoving it back into his back pocket. “Come on, let’s walk—”

“What about Li-La?” Rey said instead, the idea of a walk through the Takodana forest with Ben sending a longing churn in her gut. “Where is she?”

His gaze dropped down, a tense and awkward edge to his hunched shoulders. “Uh—Milo met us back at the landing—”

“You comm-ed, Milo?” She frowned. “What didn’t you comm me? Didn’t you want me to meet you—”

“Of course, of course,” Ben assured her, “but wasn’t this more fun?” he added with a chuckle.

Rey didn’t laugh, still confused. She and Milo always met up together at the landing when they could; why did they purposely exclude her? It felt like old times—and not in the good way. Pushing Little Rey out of the grow-ups circle while the three planned and discussed like they were far older. Like they weren’t kids just like her, pretending to be adults.

It hurt.

Ben sighed. “Because Milo and Li-La have something private to talk about—”

“Private how?” she insisted, meeting his gaze hard.

“Private relationship wise.”

“_Ah_.” She exhaled. “Then I _don’t_ want to know.”

Ben snorted, then winced, pulling her over into a side hug. “Come on, I’m sure Maz will be happy to know I returned.”

* * *

“BEN SOLO!” Maz bellowed from across her cantina. Marching towards Ben and Rey, she motioned for a waiter to open up a spot at the bar at the corner; their usual spot.

Upon reaching them, she waved for each to grant her a welcome; a hug and kiss on the cheek. Before Ben could pull away, Maz pinched his cheek, muttering—once again—how much he looked like his _father_.

He ignored the comparison, merely sending her a small polite smile.

“Nothing too dangerous this time I hope?” Maz asked leading them over to the bar. “Can’t have you disappear and leave this one—” she motioned to Rey, “—all in her lonesome.” Conspiratorially she leaned over, motioning for Ben to do the same. “To be perfectly honest, she becomes a leech to me when you are gone, Solo. Always asking if I need help, asking for side jobs—”

“No, I don’t!” Rey yelped, a faint blush speckling her freckles.

Maz gave a _pah,_ waving her off. She went about making their drinks—Corellia Whiskey for Ben and a Jogan fruit drink, non-alcoholic, for Rey.

She frowned a bit as Maz gave her the virgin drink. “Tomorrow you can get your first real drink,” the ancient woman told her. “Still sixteen in my eyes, my dear.”

“I could already be seventeen for all we know,” Rey muttered around her straw.

“Still sixteen,” Maz chimed in, nodding to Ben who was far too amused by the exchange. “Just because you are around this Solo doesn’t mean you need to grow up too soon.”

With those parting words, the woman wandered off to help other costumers, leaving Rey and Ben alone with their drinks. Peeking over at him, Rey held her drink closer, tempted to shrink into herself but remained firm.

It was Ben.

It was just Ben.

Ben who spent too much time on his hair only to shove a helmet on his head two seconds later, who would stay up late and read until his eyes grew tired and drooped, who would get ink all over his hands as he practiced his calligraphy.

Ben who also snored in his sleep, argued with everyone until his face turned blue because he’s a stubborn git, and who’s face revealed everything he was thinking all the time which made him an absolute shit liar.

Yeah, he was just Ben.

And she hated how her heart did a strange little happy dance whenever she was near him. A miracle she could hide her emotions so well, her training apparently coming in handy for once in her life.

“I…I was nervous you weren’t going to make it for our Name Day,” she confessed to the sticky counter top.

His head whipped up, surprised she was talking. Out loud.

Sometimes it was just easier to nudge each other through the Force and talk through the bond, but she was too anxious—afraid her words through the bond would be laced with her emotions, Ben able to the sense her deep admiration and _more_ for him in an instant.

“Of course I’d make it,” Ben’s lips half twitched, tempting a smile. He took a small sip of his whiskey, frowning at the taste. He always frowned at the taste, not liking the drink, but still ordering it without fail each time. “I’d break all sorts of hyperspace laws to make it back in time,” he teased, nudging her elbow with him. He then became serious, eyes catching hers in their own puzzle fitting way. “But I’ve never missed a Name Day before, I wouldn’t start now. Especially your seventeenth Name Day.”

“Oh right, right,” she nodded hurriedly. She chewed hard on her straw before letting it go. “I just…it’s…I always thought we’d be back with Jyn and Cassian at this point.”

His shoulder sagged a fraction at the mention of her adoptive parents. “I know.”

“Do you think they are still out there?” she asked quietly.

“Rey…”

“Come on, Ben,” she turned to him, a hint of desperate. “We would have felt them in the Force if they—if they died.” They were both deeply connected to Jyn and Cassian, a connection that ran far deeper than just merely guardians. Together, the four were a family. An honest, caring family. The Force felt it and knew it; all the texts Rey read pointed to both her and Ben being capable of feeling the loss of family—by blood or spirit—in the Force. “Maybe—maybe if we try together,” her hand latched on to his, firm and steady, “reach as far as we can in Force, maybe we can find the—”

Ben’s arm tensed, but he didn’t dare shake her off. “Rey, they are _gone_. Whether they are alive or not, they aren’t coming back at this point.”

An ugly pain twisted inside her, she facing him head on rather than a coward’s exit. “I hate it when you are like this,” she told him bluntly.

His eyebrows jumped, whiskey long forgotten. “Excuse me?”

“I hate it,” she said slowly, sounding out every syllable, “when _you_ are like this.” Her gaze hardened, reminding herself that tomorrow she’d officially be an adult and Ben could no longer boss her around whenever he so pleased, or shut her up when he felt uncomfortable having a verbal conversation. “All grumpy, moody, and not wanting to listen because you are hurt—”

“Okay, I get it,” he stood up from his barstool, “I’m the worst. Sorry after a long and boring job I wanted to spend time with you and not discuss how our parent figures may or may not be dead.”

Turning on his heel, he left the cantina, nearly shoving those who came into his path.

Rey sighed, hurrying after him. “_Ben_—"

Once outside the cantina, he whirled around to her, eyebrows raised and hands on his hips, waiting. “No—I don’t want to hear it—”

“I’ve just been thinking about them a lot more lately. More than I’ve been in the past.” She stared up at him, his eyes reflecting the boy she knew as well as her own soul. “That…that maybe they really are out there. Lost. Or—or maybe captured.”

He shook his head, wiping a hand down his face. “Rey…I don’t know. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren’t, but we can’t be thinking about them when there is so much to be concerned about here.”

“_Like what_?” she shot back.

Ben recoiled, stunned by her ferocity. Within an instant he blinked his shock away, shrugging his shoulders lightly. “Like—like maybe the fact…the fact Milo and Li-La are going to become parents.”

Her gut dropped.

“What?” she breathed. “What do you mean?”

“Li-La is pregnant, Rey,” Ben told her gently. He raised a hand to her shoulder, squeezing tenderly. “She can’t go on jobs or missions anymore. In fact, I think her and Milo might leave us all together. Settle somewhere calmer.”

“_Oh_,” was all she could say, unsure on how to feel about the news. “What-what does that mean for us?”

His lips pulled into a sad smirk. “You’re getting promoted, kid.”

He did not mean what she though he meant, did he? “What are you—”

“Our next job is in a couples of days,” he told her plainly, hand still locked and firm on her shoulder. “Nothing too bad. Just a parcel shipment, probably sensitive information. Nothing too major. It’s on a Core World.”

“I’ve never been to a Core World,” Rey breathed, unable to hide her excitement despite their the less than thrilling circumstances surrounding the change up.

“I know,” he nodded once, attempting to hide his own disappointment on the matter. “They aren’t as exciting as they sound, but it would be a good experience.”

His words were stilted, as though he was forcing himself to be encouraging and happy about her first job out with him.

“But we are going to have to do something about your face.” He motioned to her nose and cheekbones. “Anyone would be able to recognize those freckles a mile away.”

“Ben, I think that’s just you.”

His hand was quick to drop from her shoulder.

Like it burned. Scalding.

She could still feel the warmth of his grasp.

He cleared his throat, crossing and uncrossing his arms before nodding over in the direction of their workshop. “Come on. Le-let’s go,” he stuttered out, marching ahead of her before she could utter another word.

Following his lead, Rey allowed herself to trail behind and watch Ben from a safe distance.

Her cheeks burned bright.

But she wasn’t too sure if it was her own causing…

Or his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY.
> 
> So NOTHING-NO HANKYPANKY-NO ROLLING IN THE HAY will happen between Rey and Ben right now. I feel I should clarify that. 
> 
> (Have I mentioned this fic is a slow burn? It's a slow burn.)
> 
> But that doesn't mean she doesn't ~feel~ things. SHE SEVENTEEN FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. OF COURSE SHE IS GOING TO ~FEEL~ THINGS WHEN BEN SOLO IS AROUND. Come on!
> 
> And Ben is in an awkward position in all of this because...well because it is Rey, she is still sort of a kid in his eyes. 
> 
> Okay, now that THAT is out of the way...
> 
> REY IS GOING TO BE A SMUGGLER, WHOOOO :D
> 
> And maybe Ben is not happy about that?
> 
> Also...REY STILL HAS HOPE ABOUT JYN AND CASSIAN. Gosh, I love her.
> 
> Btw, there is only maybe...five chapters max of this time frame. That's the maximum, might be less. Because we are getting closer to the events of TFA...….which I don't think anyone has figured out how that will all go down. MWAHAHAHAHAHA.


	24. Burnt Orange Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Typos will be fixed later.
> 
> Enjoy :D

* * *

As children they played dress up.

Usually digging into Cassian and Jyn’s old belongings. Fabric and belts they picked up on numerous adventures. Gifts they received from locals on planets she could barely pronounce.

Always pretending to be someone else—a fantastical version of fateful what ifs. Attempting to imagine an extraordinary (or ordinary) life. She’d coerce him into playing house, and spies, and the occasional exotic animal. Ben was always willing to play her games, not matter what.

But this was different.

Because they weren’t playing pretend. This was real life, and a disguise—a dip into the world of pretend—was a matter of life or death. A matter Rey never truly contemplated, living in the realm of making it through life day by day. She rarely considered the possibility of death and protection…

That was Ben’s job.

The tinted goggles were too tight, the scarf felt suffocating, and the helmet smashed her braid but at least her face was covered.

Ben wrapped the scarf in an intricate fashion, secure on her head and neck. “Your face must always be covered.”

Rey peered up at him, he sans helmet as he helped her arrange her disguise. “You sound like a Mandalorian.”

“Their method is not madness,” he defended. He spun her around to face the tiny mirror in their room. Hands remained planted on her shoulders, steady and warm. He hunched low, attempting to fit into the frame of the mirror, his head beside hers. Eyes connecting with hers through their reflection. She could not help but smile under her scarf at the sight of she and Ben. Together.

Together like…

She shrugged his hands off. Rough, brisk, and shifting an inch forward. Away from him.

He tucked his arms over his chest quickly. As though unbothered. The muffled rumbling from his end of the bond spoke otherwise.

“I don’t look like me. I look like a mummy,” she grumbled, feeling suddenly _too_ hot under her smuggler garb.

“That’s the point, _Kira Cas,_” he stressed on her code name. She wasn’t fond of it, but Ben insisted. “We don’t want you to look like you—if you look like you, then that means a potential enemy will know your face. We don’t want that.”

She yanked down her scarf, finding the need the breathe properly overwhelming. “Paranoid much?”

“Not paranoid,” Ben argued, stepping back from her, “just cautious. Being cautious has kept me safe all these years.” Rey found she could not argue; his restraint and caution has protected them from more trouble than she could ever imagine. She knew his actions were not to be taken lightly. “Oh and one more thing.” Ben crossed over to his desk tucked into one corner of the room. Several books and scattered parchment laid across the surface, Ben shoving them aside in his pursuit. After some perusing, he grabbed a small wooden box under a stack of notebooks.

Facing her once more, he opened the box.

Her lips twitched at the contents, pleasantly surprised by his belongs. A few calligraphy pens and a inkwell sat inside, along with loose paper and knick-knacks she vaguely recognized; a tracker, a pocket notebook, a rolled up piece of red fabric and lastly—

“Your lightsaber?” She frowned down at the Skywalker family heirloom. Luke had given Ben the lightsaber once he advanced to near knight status at the academy. From that point on he kept the saber by his side at all time.

Rey did not have any idea he now kept his more treasured possession kept locked away. She thought he still slept with the lightsaber under his pillow. Always close. Always nearby. Always ready to leap into action.

“You can’t take your lightsaber with you.”

She flinched. “What?”

Her eyes snapped away from the box to him, confused.

“You can’t take it with you,” Ben explained patiently. “A lightsaber is a red flag. Puts a massive mark on our backs.”

“But…” Her hand reached into her inner jacker pocket. Hesitant to grasp.

Ben helped her craft her lightsaber less than a year previous. He stumbled upon kyber crystals during a job and brought back one for her. She struggled with managing the crystal, the clear rock-like object pulsing with energy she felt trickling and splintering the air. Smothering her with topsey turvy impatience.

He’d sensed her apprehension on managing the crystal and took it upon himself to aid her on its construction. She made the hilt from old blaster scraps lying around, welded together and curved to her preferred design. A long red wire connected the top to the bottom, circulating the electrical pulse that never seemed to end in the lightsaber. He’d been the one to help her guide the crystal in place, relying on the Force through their bond to bring each piece of the saber together.

In a way, it was both their lightsaber…glowing a burnt orange, verging into a red in certain light.

She thought the color was beautiful.

Ben did not comment on the matter.

“But we were taught to always keep out lightsaber on us. At all times.”

“That was before,” he said plainly. “This is now, and it is to protect ourselves.”

The box waited open between them

“You don’t take yours?”

“Never,” he answered.

Honesty thrummed through the bond.

“Okay,” she exhaled shakily.

Carefully, she removed the lightsaber from her jacket and placed the hilt in the box.

“There,” she breathed. “I did it.”

He snapped the box shut. “Good. And don’t worry,” his assurance was met with a frown, “when we go off world, I’ll give the box to Maz. She’ll keep it safe.”

The box was placed back where it belonged on his desk, glaring across the room to her.

A sharp knock sounded outside their room, Milo popping his head in before either could protest.

“How are my two favorite grumps doing?” he sang out, with a buzzing grin. “Li-La wants us all to head back down—something about a dessert or…” His eyes caught sight of Rey, eyebrows jumping. “You look like a mummy.”

She whirled to Ben, whipping her goggles off. “See? I told you!” She tossed the offended object at him along with her scarf. Huffing, she marched past both Ben and Milo.

“You couldn’t have just said she looked badass, could you?” Ben griped, following her less than a half step behind.

“How was I supposed to know you two were planning your smuggler outfits!” Milo’s cry carried through their underground apartment, voice bouncing on the durasteel. “Rey! Rey, you looked awesome—like you could totally be a killer!” Milo attempted to amend as they filed out of the corridor.

Stepping up to the steel ladder, she climbed down to the next floor, keeping a steady grip as she dropped deeper into darkness. Once she was a decent distance down, Ben followed, then Milo, both grumbling to each other under their breath. Any other day, Rey would have attempted to eavesdrop, possibly find ammunition for future blackmail or teasing, yet the temptation was slim. Her mind was far too preoccupied with her own concerned to pay any mind to Milo and Ben’s bickering, the occasional soundtrack to their dwelling.

A pang spanned within her.

Their bickerings would, one day soon, become an occurrence of the past. No longer would Ben gripe and groan nor would Milo attempt to mediate and see all sides…they’d be long distant friends. The same with Li-La. Who knew when they’d see their friends again once they parted their separate ways.

Rey banished the thought away before her feet touched the ground.

“There you two are!” Li-La called out from the dinning table. The remains of dinner were gone and replaced with a cake in the center of the table. “I told Milo to get you two before you ended up going to bed—”

“Or worse, got stuck in one of your Force bond moods,” he said teasingly.

Ben’s lips barely twitched at the joke, annoyance projected loudly through the bond. Rey repressed her own mutterings, eyes locked on the sweet treat waiting on the table.

“What’s the occasion?” she asked, taking not so many discrete steps to the table until she was right in front of the painstakingly crafted cake.

Li-La stood up, motioning for Milo to join her side. He hurried, at attention, facing both Rey and Ben with his own soft, boyish smile. “We know you two usually do your own thing for your Name Day,” Milo began, wrapping an arm around Li-La holding her close to his side—like the couple and soon to be parents they were, like how Rey pictured every couple to be when in complete and utter happiness. “And we understand—we really do. It’s been you two forever, and probably always will be.”

“But we thought,” Li-La glanced at Milo, a rare smile blooming on her lips, “we thought we should do something nice. For the two of you, since this may very well be the last Name Day we’d get to celebrate for any of us for a while. At least celebrate together.”

A strange sadness stirred within Rey despite the immense gratitude she initially felt at Li-La and Milo’s gesture.

A second passed before she realized it was not her sadness…but Ben’s.

“I love it!” Rey beamed, her hand reaching and grasping Ben’s. Anchoring him, keeping him close before he left in messy anger and agitation. “I haven’t had Name Day sweets since…” Her voice faltered.

_ Not since Jyn and Cassian. _

“Not since we were both kids,” Ben supplied, strong and sure. He gave her hand a squeeze and let go. He stepped forward, ready to swipe frosting from the top of the cake.

Li-La was quick to swat his hand away. “No you don’t, Solo!” She picked up two candles and set them into the top, lighting both with a match. “You two have to make a wish—anything you want.”

Closing her eyes, Rey complied, not bothering to see if Ben followed suit.

(She knew he did.)

Together, Rey and Ben blew out the candles.

* * *

Later when they were both laying in their own bunks, stomachs stuffed with too much berry cake, Rey found the nerve to peek down to Ben.

On the bottom bunk he laid on his side, staring out into the darkness of nothing. His brows were pinched deep in thought, hands laying on his ribs, thrumming a soft and silent beat. They’d both gone to bed immediately, exhausted and needing a good rest, but it seemed despite the darkness and warmth of their beds, neither could fall asleep.

“Ben…” She leaned forward further, holding the bar of her bunk to not topple over. “Ben…”

“What?” he mumbled, turning to lay on his back.

“What did you wish for?”

A huff left through his nose. “I can’t tell you or else it won’t come true.”

“_Please…”_ She flopped over, half her body from the chest down, dangling over the edge. Her loose hair fell in a tangled mess, she attempting to brush away the stubborn strands to see him clearly. “Please, Ben.”

Sleepy chuckles escaped him, Ben grinning up at her. “You have not changed, have you?”

“_Excuse me_?”

“I can name many, many Name Days where you’d come sneaking into my room after dessert and bully me—”

“I was not a bully!”

“—bully me,” he repeated without batting an eye, “into telling you my wish.”

“And you did every time.”

“And did any of them ever come true?” Ben shot back.

Rey opened her mouth—

Only to shut it a second later. “Maybe…you have a point.”

Full laughter erupted from Ben, he clutching his chest as he wheezed. A deightful yet mocking sound to her ears.

“Stop it!” Rey groaned, tossing a pillow down at him. Deftly he swatted her offense away, her poor limp pillow dropping to the floor. “Stop it, Ben!”

“Get down from there,” he said instead, attempting to catch his breath, “you’re going to have a headache if you don’t upright yourself.”

Pulling herself back, Rey climbed down from her bunk and picked up her pillow. About to head back to her bunk, she paused.

“I wished we’d stick together forever.”

Her confession quietly filled the room, consuming every nook and cranny.

Ben sat up, hair already mused in bedhead. Apprehension shined in his eyes, a fear reflected in the dark. “Rey…”

“It’s been my wish every year,” she continued, stepping around the bunk to sit on the edge of his bed, “ever since my first Name Day.” Hugging her pillow close to her chest, she found the will to continue. “I can’t imagine life without you and I never want to know it…so I just wish every year we can still be with each other.”

Across from her, Ben remained silent, listening intently.

Maybe this was her opportunity. To say something before they entered this next phase of their lives.

“Because…because I lo—”

“Rey, please don’t.”

She lifted her eyes to find him staring back at her with complete and utter paralyzing fear.

“But I—”

“Please,” he pleaded, his shaky hands reaching out for hers. “I—I know what you are trying to tell me and…and I care about you too. _I do_. That is why I am telling you to not say _it_. Please.”

His hands clutched her numb fingers for dear life, begging for response. Begging for her to listen to him. Understand him. Because they were the only two who understood each other in the galaxy and if they couldn’t understand each other now…in this moment…_well_…

Swallowing tightly, she nodded.

A sharp prickle stabbed behind her eyes, tears piercing their way through. Out her eyes and down the slope of her cheek, riding her sudden pain down their known path to her chin. One of his hands released their hold on her and wiped away her tears. Catching each droplet with the ease and ache of experience.

She sniffled.

Without a second thought, he pulled her into his arms. And they held each other, like they always had. Like she knew they always would.

Her cries came hard, violently and heavy.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured into her hair.

_ It’s not a ‘never’. It’s a ‘not right now’. _

The projected thought did not soothe her. Quite the opposite.

She wiggled out of his grasp, the urge to be near him yet far away overwhelming. Instead she hugged her forgotten pillow and remained stone-still on the edge of his bed.

“Rey,” Ben said her name carefully, each letter fragile, “it doesn’t mean I don’t…”

“I know,” she said, throat thick, “_I know_, Ben.”

She swore she saw their future once—

Just a glimpse.

She’d been young at the time and did not fully understand what it meant. To be standing beside him, holding his hand, feeling a wholeness. A connection that did not feel half formed or waiting to blossom into completion.

But being older, Rey had a feeling she knew what it meant.

And Ben did too. She was sure of it.

Silence spanned between them. Not only in the room but in their bond. Long and tense, seeking refuge in the turmoil coiling between them.

“Can I sleep here?” she asked. It’d been years since she shared a bed with Ben. While the nightmares occasionally lingered, being in the same room and just a bunk away was enough. At least, enough to tide her over. Keep her sane and balanced. “Just for tonight,” she added, sensing the hesitance in his gaze.

“Okay.”

Rain drops of relief danced along the bond, frightful tension releasing.

Standing up, Ben allowed her to slip into bed and slide over until she reached the wall. He followed suit, but kept to his side. A good modest few inches away from her.

Together, they fell into a fit full, dreamless sleep.

And like magnets, their hands found each other in the slip of the night.

Palm to palm, fingers intertwined.

* * *

When Rey woke the next morning she found herself to be, thankfully, the first awake.

Carefully, she extracted herself from bed and climbed over Ben’s sleeping form, leaving him undisturbed.

Walking with light feet, she crossed to Ben’s desk and opened the box.

Their lightsabers sat side by side. Like mirrors, like rivals.

She removed her lightsaber from the box and tucked it away in her pack.

Yes, Rey listened to Ben. She’d listened to Ben and followed his self-enforced cautious nature all her life.

But she also knew when he was an idiot. A complete and utter idiot she’d follow to grave.

Keeping her lightsaber by her side would prevent such ill fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone catch WHO'S lightsaber Rey's looks like? Any guesses?
> 
> And yes, I did the awkward confession now because it would hurt too much if I did it later. Expect some angst in the future.


	25. Water Through Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get the tissues.
> 
> Typos will be fixed later.
> 
> Enjoy :D

* * *

Ben Solo often imagined death.

He often thought it would be from his own slight hand.

Or by the hand of his Uncle.

Perhaps his mother. His father.

Never once did he believe it would by Rey’s doing.

Not _his_ Rey.

But as her eyes stared back, confused…

Lost.

Unknowing

Ben knew this was death.

A death of a soul. A death of a previous life.

* * *

“Can I pilot?”

“You are,” Ben motioned to the controls in front of her, “what do you call this?”

“Co-Piloting.” Her cheeky grin sent his heart leaping into his throat. Damn Rey.

Damn Rey and her brilliant smile.

“Maybe when we are on our way back home,” Ben relented. Rey was a natural, reckless pilot. One that even gave his old man a run for his money.

Ben possibly, slightly, regretted teaching Rey everything he knew.

As he geared the ship into landing, Rey glanced at the coordinates, the combination of numbers flickering in recognition.

“Jakku.”

Her eyes locked on the atmosphere surrounding the desolate, empty desert planet.

“Uh yeah,” Ben cleared his throat. “It’s the mid-point we agreed on with the client. I didn’t think you’d remember it.”

“I don’t,” she answered immediately followed by, “I do.” Her face scrunched. “I’m not too sure. Part of me feels like I just made up the memories based off of what you know.”

Ben hummed, understanding. Certain memories were hard to decipher; shared memories often bleed together, neither knowing where one began and the other’s started.

“Nothing worth remembering,” he assured her, blocking away the image of her little hallowed AT-AT. One he found her tucked away into, munching on a half stale ration. “We’ll only be there, maybe, three hours tops. Not enough time to see the great sights.”

“You mean sand, sand, and more sand,” she droned, “damn, that’s just what I wanted.”

Her giggles relaxed him. Reminded him there was nothing to fear. Nothing to worry about.

The first part of the mission had gone swimmingly. They collected the small crates of beskar (material Ben was positive was counterfeit) on Coruscant and were traveling without issues to the exchange point.

He’d say Rey’s first job outside of Takodana was a success. She kept her mask on, kept her voice low, listened to him. Not a single argument—just following his lead, as she should. Especially when she had little idea what she was doing. She had no choice but to let instinct and Ben’s gentle nudging guide her.

Ben would say he was proud of her.

But he knew he could tell her later when they reached home.

* * *

An ambush.

A fucking _ambush_.

No wonder the beskar was counterfeit.

Blaster shots echoed in the empty air, stormtroopers missing their shots as Ben ducked and dived out of their way. Several went down with ease—

Except some played dirty.

An elbow collided with his face, Ben feeling the brunt on the hint from within his mask. Dropping his blaster, he yanked the trooper down in a headlock, swinging him in the opposite direction. He fell to the ground, unmoving.

A warm trickle of blood slipped past Ben’s lips, the taste of copper on his tongue.

He could chuck off his mask…but then his face would be shown.

A sharp, painful cry sounded.

Ben whipped around to find Rey caught between two troopers. She attempted to ward them off with her staff, but they continued to pile on her.

Shucking off another wayward trooper, Ben began to march his way over to her—

Rey then tossed her staff aside and reached into her inner jacket pocket.

The vibrant orange hue of lightsaber glowed in the dim nightfall. A beckon to their enemies; a red target on their back.

Horror plunged through Ben from head to toe.

She didn’t listen to him.

She lied.

And it was going to cost Rey her life.

_ “A JEDI. WE HAVE A JEDI. ALERT THE GENERAL.” _

* * *

The dreams never ended.

The ones of him and Rey and a future he did not quite understand.

Sometimes he’d see a home. One with warmth and tea and blankets that made his heartache in the best possible way.

Sometimes they’d just be sitting beside each other, shoulder to shoulder, looking out at the green. All the green in the galaxy.

Sometimes there was a child. A sweet faced girl, with too bright of a smile and bouncy curls that reminded him of his own youth.

He wondered, in the moment he witnessed the stormtroopers yank off her mask—

How they forced her to her knees and knocked the lightsaber from her hand.

How it soundlessly sank into the sand.

How her face contorted in pain.

Pain that traveled through the bond in lightning speed, one he knew echoed his own. As it always had.

How the troopers raised their blaster intending to threaten and abuse, Rey glaring and shaking in defiance.

—He wondered if the Force was playing a cruel joke.

* * *

“IT’S MINE.”

The stormtroopers stilled, all turning to the proclaiming shout.

Rey’s eyes drifted from the blaster shoved in her face to Ben.

He chucked off his masked, the bottom half dented and scratched. The handcrafted piece fell by his feet, sand shaking and dispersing underneath its weight.

Blood dripped from his forehead and nose, his face streaked in scattered lines of dark red. Dark hair clung to his neck and forehead, sweat dripping from him.

Broken.

Shattered.

Torn from the inside out.

Rey reached into the bond…

And felt a block. A wall impenetrable.

“THE LIGHTSABER.” He swallowed, fear in his eyes. “It’s—IT’S _MINE_.”

“Prove it,” a lone stormtrooper called out.

When nothing happened, the stormtrooper scoffed. “See? Noth—”

Before another word could be uttered, a chocking sound gurgled from the trooper.

A thud, then—

“He’s dead.”

“THE JEDI KILLED HIM.”

* * *

Ben makes her world stop.

Makes, made, will always make her world stop.

From the moment she met him, saw him peeking around her AT-AT, he had a way of becoming not the center of her universe, but creating a universe for just him and her.

For just _them_ and their own minds.

A place for two.

All else faded away when his eyes locked on her.

_ “I’m Ben,” _ he held his hand out to her,_ “And I don’t think you belong here. Do you?”_

She didn’t say a word.

Instead, she took his hand.

And she made a silent promise to never let go.

* * *

Ben was captured without fight, the troopers dragging him to the edge of their ships ramp. With a rough shove he was deposited beside Rey, forced to his knees.

He ignored her pleading stares.

“Ben, what are you doing—”

“Shut up,” he grunted, as the stormtroopers began hi-fiving each other. Ben rolled his eyes; these idiots were competent one moment and then incompetent the next.

She wiggled closer to him. “Why the hell are you taking the blame?” she hissed. Loose hair flopped in her face, the night winds beginning to pick up. Sand dashed around them, the troopers gathering closer together as they awaited orders from their general. “It’s my fault.”

“Because—”

“Hey! Quiet!”

Ben snapped his mouth shut, eyes darting between Rey and the troopers.

He had a few minutes…maybe seconds if he calculated wrong.

“You need to promise me something,” he whispered.

Swallowing, she gave a little nod.

“You’ll trust me,” he said, eyes begging for her to listen. To listen for once in her goddamn life. “No matter what?”

“I—” Her eyes water. Sand began to dance in the violent air, both ducking their heads yet keeping their gaze connected.

Just them.

A world for two.

“I promise.”

With all the strength and energy left in him, Ben kissed her.

* * *

_ “The scary monster!” she blubbered. “He wanted to get me—” _

_ “He won’t get you,” Ben said, speaking up for the first time since entering. “I promise Rey, he won’t get you.” _

_ * _

_ “…Can you please not like that kriffing nerfherder? He’s an annoying shit in class and I’d rather have you hang out with someone who appreciates you and not just using you to get ahead in their training.” _

_ “If you think I like him—” she made chocking sound from the back of her throat “—you are even dumber than I thought you were.” _

_ * _

_ “Ben and I can have the same name-day!” she exclaimed, turning to him with bright eyes. _

_ The boy’s eyes widened. “No! No—Rey you should have your own name-day. Just for you. You shouldn’t have to share it with me.” _

_ “But I want to,” she insisted, eyebrows furrowing deeply. “Because you’re my best friend.” _

_ “Best friends don’t do everything together,” he clarified, a faint tinge of pink brushed across his pale cheeks. “Like name-days.” _

_ “But I don’t want us to be alone—this way you always have me.” _

_ * _

_ “Whatever happens we stick together,” Ben voice traveled in the empty space. _

_ * _

_ “What you and Ben have should probably be kept between you and Ben,” Cassian suggested. _

_ “Why?” _

_ “Because it is important and special to you—don’t forget that.” _

*

_ “Yes, you are—yes you are!” he growled in the space between them, forcing her to believe the truth he possessed. “You are…and I’m here. I am here and I am not going anywhere. Like I promised. You’ll always have me…and you are the light in my life. You need to know that. Please, tell me you can hear me?” _

_ * _

_ "Before you know it, you'll be walking through the sky." _

*

_ “I’m sorry,” he murmured into her hair. _

_ It’s not a ‘never’. It’s a ‘not right now’. _

*

_ The dream was the same every single time. _

_ Ben fell back, into the pit. Never to be seen again. _

_ Rey left alone in a terror of water. _

_ The surface slick, her feet unable to gain traction on the aged metal. _

_ Waves crashing over her, again and again. _

_ Until she couldn’t breathe. _

_ Crying out for him. _

_ A piercing, gut dropping cackle filling the air. _

_ "You're coming together will be your undoing..." _

*

_ “I wished we’d stick together forever.” _

* * *

And it ends, he pulling away before his heart could be wounded any deeper.

Her hazel eyes blinked opened.

Empty and lost.

Her hands remained fisted on his jacket, the leather bunched up under her fingers. Calloused hands he’d not see again for some time. She clung to him despite not knowing what was happening. Not knowing—

“Who are you?” she breathed, eyes searching his desperately.

Because he knew—he knew deep down she could recognize him in some way.

A bond could not be broken. But it could be muted and hidden behind reinforced walls.

Close to her, he memorized the speckles of gold and green in the hues of brown in her eyes. Memorized how she felt in his arms; warm and alive. And _safe_.

She was going to be safe.

Even if she never knew the life she lived.

“Someone who loves you.”

“THE GENERAL WANTS THE JEDI. TAKE HIM AWAY!”

Hands yanked him away from her, his vision blurring as he was pulled further and further up the ramp. His feet stumbled over each other, feeling weaker by the second.

_ Sweetheart, I’ll be back for you. _

The message traveled through the bond, she bolting up at the thrum in their connection.

“No! Come back!”

He then slammed the bond shut.

Agonizing screams echoed through the desert planet.

Rey collapsed, sand whipping in harsh licking waves.

A part of him tore away.

Piece by piece.

Ben hissed as he felt a part of his chest begin to grow numb.

“What do we do with the girl?” One trooper asked.

“Bring her too—”

Ben’s head snapped up, eyes connecting with the leading officer’s helmet. “You will leave the girl.”

“We…will leave the girl,” the stormtrooper echoed, almost monotone. “LET’S GO.”

The lingering stormtroopers marched past her, not a glace spared her way.

As the ramp closed, Ben kept his eyes trained on Rey motionless body. Limp and exhausted.

Vision blurry, his tears fell down his bloodstained cheeks.

And tears dripped into the durasteel, the droplets rolling away into nothing.

* * *

He’d been in a holding cell for less than an hour.

The Head General was off base along with a few other high officials, but the orders were clear and solid, Ben hearing the message through the stormtroopers’ coms.

‘Keep him alive, but locked up. The Supreme Leader will want to me with him.’

A cot and a toilet bowl were the highlight of his amenities.

Sitting on the floor in the center of the room, Ben attempted to meditate. A first for him in years, but he did not know how else to ease the crippling pain in his chest. Meditation seemed like his only option.

He missed her.

He missed her so much.

A part of him was gone, connected to her forever.

Tears started again.

Ben did not bother to scrub them away.

The cell’s main doors hissed.

He froze.

Well measured steps came towards him, cleaned and cared for black boots falling into Ben’s vision. When the officer did not make any move to grab or shove him, Ben ventured a glance up.

A woman. First Order regalia embossed into her dark blue uniform, the ranking of Lieutenant on her sleeve. Her hat shadowed half her face, though Ben could see dark bangs peeking out from under.

Silence passed.

Neither moved.

Until she crouched before him, resting a firm and steady left hand on his shoulder. A familiar weight. His eyes traveled down the appendage; he found a small faded tan line where a ring was once in place.

His eyes jumped back to her face—

Blue eyes stared back_. Jyn’s_ blue eyes.

“J—”

“Is she alive?” Her voice sliced through. Low and sharp.

Ben didn’t need to ask who she was talking about. “Yes.”

“Good.”

Jyn swallowed. Watering eyes stared back at him, a broken smile tempting the corners of her lips.

“You’ve grown so much.”

The dam broke, Ben lunging into her embrace. Fierce arms wrapped around him, holding him up. Keeping him afloat in his own waters of pain.

“I’ve got you, Ben. I’ve got you.” She whispered by his ear, pressing a kiss to his bloodstained forehead. “I promise we’ll get out of here. _I promise_.”

Together, crouched on the dirty holding cell floor, a mother and son cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyyy….
> 
> Jyn's back! 
> 
> And Ben's caught by the FO. Sacrificing himself for Rey, of course.
> 
> And Rey is abandoned on Jakku...again.
> 
> BUT WHERE THE HECK IS CASSIAN?
> 
> A small chapter next time and then TIME JUMP. BUT NOT ANY OLD TIME JUMP---
> 
> WE WILL OFFICIALLY BE IN THE FORCE AWAKENS TIMELINE. AHHHHHH.


	26. Sand Through the Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize now is not the ideal time to post a little angst, but I cannot change the trajectory of the fic. THE STORY MUST GO ON.
> 
> Afterall, we get to see a character we haven't seen for some time...
> 
> Typos will be fixed later.
> 
> Enjoy :D

* * *

She woke with a jolt.

“Hush.”

Her eyes remained shut. Too afraid to open. Too afraid to see.

A cool cloth was placed on her forehead, she squirming away from the touch.

“She mustn’t be disturbed,” a low voice ordered, “it is a miracle we found her alive at all.”

“_She_ ‘as a name,” Rey uttered, her mouth feeling like sandpaper.

“Shh, child,” the man ordered gently. A canteen was pressed to her lips, urging her. “Drink. You do not want to be dehydrated.”

She listened, feeling the insufferable heat. A logical brain told her to trust, to act on survival. Gears that felt rusty, but there in the back of her mind. Pushing her to drink, reminding her to calm down, to not rush herself. To breathe the humid, stiff air.

Dry air…familiar, yet vague.

“Do you know where you are, child?” the quivering, older voice asked.

Her mouth remained closed, she swallowing.

The heat of tears built up behind her eyes.

Stubborn. Rey refused to open her eyes. Salty tears streams from under her eyelids, trailing down her temples in steady dribbles.

“Yes,” she croaked. “I know.” A shake exhale shuddered through her. “Jakku.”

“Yes, dear. Jakku.” The damp cloth was removed from her forehead and replaced with a new one, water seeping into her hairline. “Do you know where you came from?”

Rey paused.

She knew she was from Jakku…and she _left_ Jakku.

Had been gone for years.

But she didn’t know where.

Where she’d been, what she’d done, who she was now.

All she remembered was the man.

_Sweetheart, I’ll be back for you._

He kissed her.

He loved her.

And he’d be back. He promised.

His eyes…she’d remember those honey-brown, soft eyes for as long as she lived.

“No,” she breathed, “I don’t know where I came from.”

But she knew where she belonged.

* * *

_ **SOME TIME LATER...** _

A tip from a trader.

Takodana was the spot to go if he needed an engineer or mechanic. Someone to tune up his old, secondhand ship.

It helped the trader described the girl.

Young, snappy, and with three buns lining her skull.

Not a popular fashion in most circles. Too girlish or frivolous.

However, he knew one girl who possessed such a style.

A clever girl, who could take apart a blaster and know it’s functions better than any other humanoid. Could pinpoint the problem in an old compressor and fix it with a few tweaks here and there.

In the past he followed a few trails. A dead moon a few years back, a couple of locals claiming to have spot a girl and young man around the village, purchasing and collecting supplies for their camp. When he asked for names, no one uttered a single murmur.

The girl with bright eyes and the young man with dark hair were only there for a few months before leaving, never to be seen again. He then stopped by a couple of lusher planets, knowing both Rey and Ben to enjoy the outdoors in their youth.

He hoped they still did.

Takodana should have been an obvious choice. Travelers came and went, a hot spot for smugglers, and plenty of merchants lingered about.

A perfect place to blend in with the crowds and scenery.

An opportune place for his children to hide.

Upon entering the cantina, Cassian knocked on the bar’s counter. He caught to bartender’s attention, the short bi-spectacle woman, gazing up at him with a stiff upper lip.

“How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for two children—” He stopped himself.

Rey and Ben wouldn’t be kids anymore.

They’d be fully grown; Ben well into his twenties and Rey on the cusp of nineteen.

They may be unrecognizable, Ben growing like a massive wave and Rey blossoming into adulthood.

Kriff, Cassian might be unrecognizable himself.

“I’m looking for a young man and woman,” he corrected, the bartender raising an eyebrow at the change, “a tall, dark haired man and young woman, who has three buns in her hair,” his voice pitched low, “they may go by the names ‘Ben’ and ‘Rey’?”

A blaster was shoved in his face.

“How do you know those names?” The tiny woman demanded. “How?—_tell me now_.”

Cassian’s hands flew up, held in surrender. Calm, but breath dropping heavy. “Because I’m their father.”

The blaster lowered a fraction, the woman’s magnified eyes holding him in place. “Are you…Cassian?”

“Perhaps,” he answered, not moving an inch, “if you can get that blaster out of my face, I can explain.” When she did not lower the blaster, Cassian sighed. “I’ve been trying to look for them for a…for a long time. If you can just point me in the right direction.”

The woman watched him, sharp eyes trailing the lines of his form. Weary and exhausted were the few words to describe him. He’d felt it for years now, his body begging him to slow down. To breathe. To stop and give up. But he didn’t.

_Determined_, a voice reminded him. _Resilient_. _Caring_. _That’s what I’d use to describe you._

She grunted, placing her blaster back on her belt. A nod to the entrance. “Follow me.”

The woman led him through the crowded cantina and out the door, she trekked along the rundown path, tall grass dampened against the ground. Tress and foliage loomed around, Cassian knocking away a stray branch or two on their short journey.

Green, lush, full of life—a place he hoped they make home.

Within thirty minutes she stopped, gesturing to the workshop before her. “This is where they lived.”

The door and window was boarded up, paint and wood chipping on the outside of the workshop from lack of care and the natural elements of the planet.

“Lived?”

Fear pooled in his gut.

“No one has seen them in the last year,” the woman confessed. “A beating to my usual clientele.”

“Where did they go?” Cassian’s voice found a new urgency, a steadiness that had not been there for some time. He edged closer to the workshop.

And began to pull off the boards. One by one, yanking as the woman behind him tutted.

“The young Solo had work off planet, took the girl with him for a job and then…” she became solemn, “they never came back.” She waved to the workshop. “Their friends, the Agaves, boarded up the place before leaving as well. They thought Rey and Ben would come back. We all did.” Her sudden frailness told Cassian all he needed to know—his children built a home, had a community, on the planet. And they were missed whether they realized it or not. “As their family, you are welcome to do as you please with the workshop.”

He nodded in thanks before resuming his work. Behind him he heard the tiny woman begin to walk off, a sad sigh sounding her departure.

With worn hands, he pulled off the rest of the boards covering the workshop doors.

Twisting the knob, the door creaked open.

A workbench. Shelves filled to the brim with broken and damaged devices. A computer stationed in the back corner of the room.

Small, cramped, but functional. Tools laid about, untouched. Set out from when Rey or Ben possibly used them last. A book sat on the edge of the workbench.

Cassian grabbed the book dusting off the cover—a battered copy of Jedi and Sith Legends. _Mythos of the Path_. Thumbed, dogeared, noted in perfect calligraphy.

His lips tugged into a smile. Ben was still Ben. Reading and writing and studying like his life depended on it. Like consuming knowledge and reason was his only joy and purpose in life.

But this could not be all there was, no could it?

By the computer, he spotted a utility closet. Curious, he tucked the book into his inner jacket pocket and ventured to the cracked open door.

He nudged it wider with his foot…

Only to find the space was not a utility closet at all. Instead a narrow, spiral stairway, leading down under the surface of the floor. He reached to the left, flicked on the light switch.

A stream of bunker lights flickered on, illuminating his path and the floor below. For two children who loathed the bunker they’d been subjected to in their youth, they miraculous lived in one for who knew how long in recent years. A laughable turn of events if Cassian had not be somber over the reality—Rey and Ben had been gone for more or less a year. No trace.

Sparing one more glance towards the empty workshop, Cassian began to climb down the steps, on to the lower floor. The metal wheezed on the lower step but remained sturdy throughout, he making a mental note to fix the loose, whining bolts. Warm lights streamed along the top corners of the room, a strip of path down the corridor and common area.

An empty common area, cleaned spotless except for a chess board and a stack of cards left on the coffee table. He moved past the area, heading to the first door on the left—

A fresher.

And then behind the next door, an empty room with a single bed. Styled like a captain’s quarters with the shelving and wardrobe unit attached to the wall. The next door revealed an old communications board and system; old Republic tech, but usable for telecommunication if manipulated correctly.

And the last door at the end of the hall—

Cassian’s heart panged at the sight.

Untouched. Unmoved. Looking as lived in as the day they left, except the thin layer of dust spoke otherwise. A larger room than the other quarters, possibly possessed more bunks once upon a time. Yet two remained bolted to the wall, the top bunks bedding and blankets kicked off in a fuss while the bottom was put together and tucked in immaculately. A large shirt and sweater were tossed over on desk chair, while old boots were tucked under another. Papers and notebooks littered one desk while the other just had way too many wires and forgotten pieces of junk.

A cup of caf left on the edge of a desk.

A basket of dirty laundry left in the corner.

A calligraphy pen left to drip and dry on to the floor, knocked over in haste.

A shelf of books filled to the brim. Handcrafted garland and lights hanging from the corners of the room.

Rey and Ben were smeared all over the room. Every inch. Left untouched, a silent monument to the life they once lived.

Taking a seat on the edge of the bottom bunk, Cassian’s eyes caught a red fabric tied around the bed post.

A dark red scarf—

_“It will be a fun little thing to throw in,” Jyn insisted as they put together the pack to send to the kids, “and it was a gift from the people of Valara for helping them. We have no use for it. Red is a bit of an outstanding color.”_

_“True,” he grunted, “but what could they possibly use it for at the academy? They wear uniforms.”_

_“I don’t know,” Jyn shrugged, not bothered by the lack of necessity to the silky scarf, “but it’d be nice to come home and see the kids with it. To know they hung on and remembered we were coming back. And children love surprises. Rey could tie it in her hair or use it as a headscarf. Or Ben can too…”_

Singed at the edges and discolored from the sun and dirt, Cassian recognized the dark red scarf.

A silly little thing.

But a silly little thing the kids kept all this time.

A reminder wherever they went, they waited.

Waited and hoped.

Too afraid to touch the damaged silk, Cassian remained rooted in his spot. Unable to look away from the glaring red.

He found them.

He was just a year late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> San Tekka is the one caring for Rey, along with the Church of the Force, if anyone didn't catch the implication.
> 
> AND CASSIAN. MY LOVE YOU ARE A-OKAY. YAY. Just late... :(

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! Comments and kudos are always appreciated; love discussing fics with readers :D


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